Sigh No More
by ArentYouSophiaLoren-8887
Summary: In a moment of singular, shattering horror, the students of Degrassi Community School come together in a way they never expected.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Not sure where this came from. Not even sure that I did a good job with it. Too angsty? Too melodramatic? Too unrealistic? Not sure on any of those fronts. But I did write it, and I wrote it so that you could read it. Review it? Maybe? **

**Future fic, FYI. Takes place towards the very end of this current school year, so not too drastically in the future.**

**And I don't own Degrassi.**

Simpson gets the news right around dinnertime, just as Spike is calling Jack and Connor to wash up and come to the table. He's busy working on some paperwork in his study, so absorbed in his work that initially he doesn't hear the phone ring. Spike gets it, her pleasant greeting suddenly followed by a scared, "excuse me?"

This he registers, looking up at his wife, who is standing with the phone in her hand, her eyes wide and dumbfounded. "Yes," she says, sounding shell-shocked. "Yes, yes, of course, he's right here." She hands him the phone.

_Emma_, he thinks immediately. _Something horrible has happened to Emma. Or Spike's mother. Or my mother._ His stomach dropping like he's on a roller coaster, he takes the phone from her with trembling hands.

"Hello?"

"Archibald Simpson?"

A cool, brisk, impassive voice. Like the feeling of a hospital, personified.

"Yes, that's me. Who is this?"

"Mr. Simpson, my name is Lieutenant Cho of the 43rd Precinct. I'm calling to inform you that we have a student of yours in the intensive care unit of Mercy General right now, suspected of being the victim of a hate crime."

His head reels. This is nothing what he expected. "Wh…who?" he manages after a moment.

"Adam Torres."

Archie's mouth is dry. "I see," he says, although in reality he does not at all.

"Sir?"

A feeling creeps into his throat, like a butterfly is fluttering around in there, and for a moment, Simpson thinks he might throw up.

"Mr. Simpson?"

He swallows, clamping his mouth shut until he feels he can open his mouth without being sick. "How severe are we talking?" he asks quietly, not wanting to know the answer.

Another long pause at the other end. "I can't release that information without consent from the family," he says.

Simpson nods, and mechanically thanks the officer for the news. They hang up, and he stares at the phone for a long time after the call ends, even when the operator comes on and tells him that if he would like to make a call, he needs to please hang up and try again.

Spike touches his arm, bringing him back to reality.

He tells her. There are tears in her eyes, and her face is ashen, but she is calm as she says, "The phone tree, Archie. I'll get started on that. Connor can serve dinner tonight."

He nods. The phone tree- an emergency contact system set up in the wake of Vegas Night events, a way for parents to contact one another in the event of a school-wide emergency so that everyone can be up-to-date on what's going on at the school. Each grade has a voluntary group of parents who have a list of thirty or so names to call in such case. It hasn't been put into effect yet.

Now, he realizes grimly, he'll be able to test how effective this new system really is.

Spike is already taking up residence in his old seat, expertly dialing numbers. Her eyes are still moist, but her voice is firm and still as she begins to make the rounds. _Circle the wagons_, he thinks.

Connor pokes his head into the study. "Ummm, you said dinner would be ready in five minutes," he says, then blinks in surprise when he sees the looks on their faces and shrinks away. Connor has never been one to handle emotions of others well.

Simpson takes a deep breath, trying to keep himself steady, and motions for Connor to join him in the kitchen. Jack is sitting at the table, twirling his fork idly on his plate. "I'm hungry," he announces. "Where's Mommy?"

Simpson lifts his son out of his chair. "Jack, buddy," he says, trying to feign lightheartedness, "I need you go upstairs for a minute. Just a minute. I have to tell Connor something important. Okay?"

"Then can we have dinner?" Jack whines.

"Yes," Simpson says impatiently, brushing him away as Jack runs up the stairs.

Connor stares at him. "What's going on?" he asks. "It's something serious, I can tell."


	2. Chapter 2

**I.**

Wesley hears the news from his mother, who heard it through the phone chain via some other Grade 10 parent. She tells him with tears in her eyes and a shaking voice, and when she's done, she takes her own son into her arms, grateful for his boyish slimness under her hands, safe and whole.

Ten minutes after he gets the call, Wesley is sitting in his room, the door shut and the lights off, lying on his back in bed. He's staring at the ceiling with blank eyes, so completely lost in thought that he nearly jumps out of his skin when his text message alert goes off on his phone.

It's a text from Dave, and even through the emotionless medium of technology Wesley can feel the numb shock through the phone, as if his friend was standing directly in front of him. _Did you hear?_

Wesley stares at the phone for a full minute, not really processing what he's seeing and unsure of how to respond once he does. Finally, he just switches the phone off and puts it face-down on his bedside table. What else is there to do?

The next time Wesley looks at his clock, it's nearly eleven, which surprises him, because normally he's fast asleep by now. But he can't sleep yet; he's still got to finish his trig homework, brush his teeth, take a shower. Will there even be school tomorrow? he wonders, then thinks, of course there will be. Why wouldn't there be? Nothing would probably happen; certainly, with the phone chain going on, the entire faculty and student body would know about this before the sun rose the next day, and it would be all anyone would talk about at school, so only the most hard-nosed teachers would actually press any type of work on the students. Wesley momentarily ponders just blowing off his trig and closes his eyes, willing his brain to shut off.

About another hour goes by when Wesley realizes that he isn't going to be sleeping anytime soon, so he gets up and goes into his bathroom, turning on the hot water and sitting on the lip of the tub, running the water over his bare legs.

Maybe it's the noise of the running water, so good for masking other noises you'd rather nobody hear. Maybe it's the fact that it's late at night, and his parents are asleep, surely, by now. Maybe it's just NOW hitting him, the absorbance of the shock of the atrocity that has just occurred, something that he doesn't have words to describe or react to. But whatever the reason, he suddenly doubles over, burying his head in his hands, and he sobs.

He hasn't cried this hard since he was a small child; he's choking and gargling on his sobs, loud and inelegant, tears and snot streaming down his nose like a faucet. The steam from the shower curls his hair even more, and it hangs in front of his face limply, making him look a little crazy and out-of-control. He cannot control his trembling as he shakes with sobs, his chest heaving as one word wracks his body: _Why? Why? Why?_

**II.**

Dave hears from his father, who relays the information to him with a slack face and emotionless voice. But afterward, he puts his arm on his son's shoulder, and Dave gets a jolt through him when he realizes how old his father looks- not just looks, but _is._

Funny-for all the times Dave jokes about his "old man", he never actually thought he'd be an Old Man.

Not that it's _haha_ funny.

Dave's mother doesn't say anything, but he can see that her face is heavier, tired, and she keeps glancing at him, as if to reassure herself that he's still sitting at the table. He can feel her eyes watching him.

He tries to finish his dinner, but he looks at the meatloaf that his mother prepared- one moment so appetizing, it now looks like throw-up, and he promptly gets up without being excused, all but bolting for the garage.

It's getting dark outside, and he needs to finish his homework, but his parents don't try and bring him inside, even when the street lights go on. He just keeps shooting hoops, one after the other, not even keeping track of which ones he's nailing and which ones he's missing. He just keeps pounding the pavement repeatedly, the slap of rubber against concrete lapping his mind over and over again like a backbeat, until it's all he hears.

Finally, after he's been outside for who knows how long, he stops, trembling, his arms burning and legs shaking. Taking deep gulps of cold air that burn all the way down, he leans up against the goal post, trying to catch his breath. A cold wind blows through, causing his teeth to chatter and the tears that he had forming in the corners of his eyes to flick down his face. Hastily, he wipes them away as best he can, swallowing mightily to get some control before he heads back inside.

**III.**

Chantay hears from her mother, who brings her into the master bedroom and shuts the doors behind her. When her mother turns to face her, there are tears in her eyes, and she reaches up to touch her daughter's face, cupping her hand against Chantay's chin before she tells her.

Chantay's jaw drops, and for once, she's stunned into speechlessness. Without knowing it, she backs up and sits on the comforter at the foot of the bed.

Chantay thinks that she should be crying- she knows that she should be doing _something_- but this time, Degrassi's number one blogger has no response. And it's not even that she's at a loss for words- she's also at a loss of emotions, a total blank slate. She doesn't cry, doesn't even feel the urge to start crying. She just sits there on her mom's bed, then on the couch, then on her own bed, all the while in a semi-catatonic state, unable to absorb the shock of what's happened.

**IV.**

Lara Coyne would rather cut her own heart out than relay the news to her daughter, but she knows that Fiona will find out sooner or later, so she'd rather she find out from her.

Predictably, Fiona falls apart, but even Lara is unprepared at the violence at which it happens. Fiona falls to her knees and screams- not just screams, but howls like a banshee, a sound that rips through her body like a current and shakes the walls. Her hands bury themselves in her hair, wild and loose around her shoulders. In her thrashing, her nightgown falls to the side, making Fiona look so tiny and vulnerable in her sorrow and bare feet. Her daughter's grief is inexhaustible, consummate, artless.

Lara bends down and puts her arms around her daughter's violently trembling form, but Fiona shakes her off, beating her away with her fist. Before Lara can say a word, Fiona has rushed away from her and slammed the door to her bathroom, locking it behind her. On the other side of the door, Lara can hear her daughter dry-heaving into the toilet, then hears the deep, inhuman keening sounds coming from the back of her throat as she falls to the tile floor and weeps.

Lara stands there for awhile, hoping that Fiona will open the door and let her comfort her, but when almost an hour goes by, Lara turns and goes into the guest bedroom, lying on the bed.

She may not have been completely on-board with Fiona's…unusual relationship with the Torres boy, but she had nothing except her own ignorance about his situation to blame for that. Declan had met him a few times, and he had assured her that he was a good kid- sweet, sensitive, and treated Fiona like she was a princess. Even called her princess, actually. After Bobby, Lara and Declan were both on edge about the idea of Fiona with _anyone_, but Lara had to admit that the time her daughter and this boy had been seeing each other, she had rarely seen her happier.

Lara brushed away the tears glittering in the corners of her eyes. They weren't just for Fiona, now sobbing with less volume but no less passion in the bathroom. They weren't just for that boy's family, his mother and the horror she must be feeling at this moment. They were for Adam, a boy that she had never met but who made her daughter smile for the first time in months.

And now she might never get that chance.

**V.**

After K.C. phones her with the news, Jenna puts the baby in bed with her, something she hasn't done since Jordan was a newborn and normally discourages because she doesn't want Jordan to get used to sleeping with her and not in her crib. But after she feeds the baby, she lies down beside her on the bed, watching her daughter drop off into peaceful sleep.

She's shocked by what has happened to Adam, of course. But more so now, because she is a mother, and now that she has her own child, she can't begin to understand how horrified his mother must be. At one point, Adam was no different from the child lying beside her right now- tiny, helpless, frail as a baby bird. She is beyond sickened that someone could perpetuate such violence against another human being.

That person is someone's _child_. That is somebody's _baby_.

In a way, Jenna is glad that Kyle is working tonight and cannot drive her to the ER, where she knows that many of her classmates will be waiting all night until they hear some news. She had made an excuse that she had to stay with the baby, when she knows that K.C.'s mother could have taken Jordan easily.

The truth is, Jenna doesn't want to go. She doesn't think she can handle being in that room with someone as fragile and helpless as her baby is. She doesn't think she could look at Adam Torres's broken, shattered body, see the anguish on his family's faces and the horror in his mother's eyes, without seeing her own baby in that bed and knowing that such evil existed in the world, and it could strike anyone's children without a second thought.

**VI.**

Zane doesn't get the news via a parent- he hears it from Larissa, president of the LGBT club at school, while at The Dot getting a tea with Riley and Anya.

He feels sick to his stomach, combined with the ferocious need to punch someone in the face- anyone, he's not entirely picky. He knows Adam Torres from LGBT, and likes the kid a whole lot. He's kind and good-hearted and downright hilarious, with a great wit and an also equally hilarious awkwardness to him that has endeared him to Zane. He knows the kid has it tough, but sometimes wonders if people in his situation have it harder than "average" gay and lesbians (for lack of better terms). He doesn't know if that's necessarily true- he hasn't met another trans person before Adam- but the kid obviously has a strength to him that Zane admires. And despite the whole football feud with Riley earlier this year, Drew has also earned a bit of affection from Zane- he's a good brother who clearly loves Adam deeply.

Across the table from him, Anya looks sick herself, and Riley just looks blank. He stares out the window, coffee turning to sludge in his cup, unnoticed. Anya keeps shaking her head involuntarily, as if there's a fly buzzing around her head. They all sit in silence for a long moment.

"We should go," Riley blurts out, breaking the pause between them. Anya looks at him, confused.

"Where?" she asks.

He stares at her like it's obvious. "The hospital," he says.

Anya glances at Zane hesitantly, then back at Riley. "I don't think that's a good idea," she tells him.

"Why not?"

She looks at Zane again, probing him for better answers, but he doesn't have any to give.

"I think this is more of a family thing," she tries to explain to Riley. "It might not be…proper if we show up." She tosses another helpless expression at Zane, then gives up. "It's just that if we went, we'd probably only get in the way. I don't think it'd be appropriate for us to just show up. They might not even want us there, anyway."

Riley shakes his head, unconvinced. "But wouldn't you think they'd want people there?'" he argues. "You know, for support and stuff. Like, to show them that we care about Adam. That we want to be there for them."

"Riley, they don't even know us," Anya replies.

"Let's go," Zane cuts in, causing both of them to stop their tennis match conversation and look at him in surprise. "I'm not really planning on sleeping tonight," he tells them. "Might as well spend it someplace where no one else will, either."

Riley nods, and Anya steps out of the booth, admitting defeat as she follows both boys out of The Dot, waving a hasty goodbye to Peter on the way out.

Zane gets into the car and revs the engine, pausing a moment to collect himself. He doesn't know exactly why he's doing this, and is a little worried about the impropriety of just showing up like this, but then a stronger part of him thinks, _their son could be dying. Fuck propriety._

A strong, calloused hand reaches out and touches his cheek, startling him. Riley reaches his other hand over, touching his other cheek, and bends his boyfriend's head closer to his own, until their foreheads are touching. Then his hands run through Zane's hair, and his lips press against his forehead, giving him strength. And despite the horror still causing his stomach to flip, Zane feels a smile play at the corners of his mouth.

His parents barely notice their existence as the three of them stride through the waiting room doors, but Drew looks at them in surprise, as if the shock of seeing someone he knew momentarily snapped him out of his own terror. Zane hugged him, noting carefully the hollow, dead look in his eyes and the way he had stared at all three of them as if he'd never seen them in his life before. And, to his infinite surprise, Riley hugged him, too- awkwardly, literally walking into Drew with open arms, but still a hug, nonetheless.

"I can't believe you guys showed up," Drew says.

Riley shrugs. "Hey, man, we wanted you to know that we're here for you," he answers. "We're a team, right?"

Drew smiles, small and unbearably sad, but genuine even so. "Yeah," he says. "A team."

"Drew," his mother calls, and he throws the guys another grateful look before going over to his parents, who are having a conversation with a nurse. Mr. and Mrs. Torres look like carved statues, blocks of marble carved into sorrowful poses by an artist trying to bring to life the anguish inside himself.

The three of them look at each other, awkward and unsure of what else to do. They had shown up with the intention of helping, but now they wonder if they're just interfering. It's so private here, with just the family, and they feel as if they're collectively intruding on something intimate that should only be seen behind closed bedroom doors.

Then the door bursts open, startling them, and in comes Sav, Sav's little sister, and Clare Edwards. The three of them breathe a sigh of relief. The wagons are being circled.


	3. Chapter 3

He's been to church his whole life with his family, but for all the times he's bowed his head to pray in the pews, Riley can only recall twice in his life that he felt as if his prayers actually meant something.

The first time happened just last year. He knelt down and put his head against the smooth, polished wood of the pew in front of him, and asked God with everything he had in him to make him straight. He'd do anything in the world for Him, if He could just grant Riley this one little thing.

As soon as he'd said that, a voice in his head- whether it was God's or his own, he's not sure- said slyly, mockingly- _the Big Man Upstairs don't make bargains, my friend._

This is the second time.

He stumbled across the hospital sanctuary by accident- he was looking for a soda machine when he found this tiny room, mostly dark except for a few candles here and there, reeking of incense and agony and tears.

He doesn't really know why he's doing it, but he kneels in front of the altar and bows his head, thinking that if he does not believe now; if he cannot formulate the proper words to say at this very moment, when you have to place your trust in something higher than yourself to bring you through this crisis; if he cannot stop wondering whether or not there even is a God to begin with (because how can there be a God if something like this happens?); if Drew's brother dies, his lack of faith will have some part in it.

Silly. Narcissistic, really.

Riley isn't sure what he thinks about God or whatever the hell might be up here- and his own faith has been wavering long before he could even bring himself to _think about_ the possibility that he might be gay.

But here he is, as the old cliché goes- there are no atheists in foxholes.


	4. Chapter 4

Anya isn't entirely sure what she's doing here. Honestly, she feels superfluous, like a filler character on a TV show that has no plotlines or discernable personality of its own. And while she feels sick at the truth of this horrible thing-

_(she knows those aren't the right words, not by a long shot. Atrocity, devastation, catastrophe, a hell- those are more appropriate. But despite all of those, she can still not bring herself to say what it is in its most basic sense- ATTACK.)_

_(HATE CRIME is even worse; it reduces Adam to another statistic, another story on the news, right before a story on a recall of organic produce and how to lower your monthly cell phone bill by nearly 8%)_

she knows that she should go home. There's a million things she needs to be doing. Homework. Cooking dinner. Taking care of her mother. Working on her art project due at the end of the week.

But she can't seem to make herself leave, so she's been sitting here for three hours with her hands in her lap, unable to make more than fleeting eye contact with anyone in the dingy room, while Clare Edwards and Sav are stone buffers on either side of her.

As far as she knows, Clare hasn't moved an inch the entire time that she's been here- she just sits in her seat, her eyes flat and dark, her face streaked with tear stains. Oddly enough, she hasn't cried, but Anya remembers from her own mother's diagnosis that when faced with the unthinkable, sometimes you just reach a point where you can't cry anymore. Clare, it seems, has reached that point where she is all cried out.

On her other side, Sav is bent over in his chair, his arms resting on his knees and his face buried in his hands. He, too, has been silent since he got here, except for the patter of his feet drumming on the speckled tile.

The sound of heels tap-tap-tapping on the floor makes Anya and Sav both look up. Holly J bustles into the room, all business and propriety, but her face is tight and pale, and her hair is slipping from its tight ponytail. For the first time Anya can remember, she looks frazzled, unkempt, confused- nothing like the brisk, no-nonsense girl she usually is.

Holly J comes to a stop near their chairs, putting her hands on her hips like she doesn't know what to do. Another first for Anya to see from her former best friend.

"How are things?" Holly J finally asks.

_Silly question_, Anya thinks. _Pretty freaking terrible, all things considered_.

Holly J is still looking at them expectantly. "What's been going on?" Her voice is getting some of that old command to it. "Fill me up to speed, please, somebody. Speak!"

Anya glances at Sav, who has finally looked up from his hands. His eyes are sadder and older than Anya ever remembers seeing them. He looks like an old man.

Holly J's face falls, then tightens again as she turns to Anya, trying to remain impassive.

Anya shrugs. "We haven't heard anything," she offers.

Holly J's jaw drops. "It's been almost four hours," she says, as if that means something.

Anya just shrugs again, not knowing what else to say.

Holly J takes the seat next to Sav. She drops into it heavily, letting out a long, deep sigh as she does so. Her palm rests on her forehead, and Anya sees the weariness in her eyes. She's not surprised. She can tell that everyone else feels the same way. She's felt it, too, in the waiting room while her mother gets her treatments, and in her blackest moments of despair, she wonders if her mother can really beat this or not.

Without questioning why she might be doing it, Anya reaches around Sav and touches Holly J's knee.

Holly J looks up at her, surprised, then puts her hand over Anya's, folding them together. She gives her old friend's hand a squeeze, and they both smile at each other, a momentary peace.

Which is promptly broken a moment later, when Fiona crashes into the ER, a hurricane. Anya can't help it, she's frightened at first by the sight of her: still in her nightgown and a pair of black boots, her hair streaming behind her wildly, she looks like an apparition, some sort of ghostly bride. Everyone turns to look at her, startled, and Fiona breaks into loud, graceless sobs.

Holly J gives Anya's hand one more squeeze and throws her a look of gratitude before getting up and walking over to Fiona. She collects the wailing wraith in her arms, murmuring gentle syllables into her hair, and force-marches Fiona into a chair where the other girl jackknifes into herself, her head buried in Holly J's abdomen.

Behind her trails Declan, as noiseless and drained as his sister is dramatic and frenzied. He stands in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do, and after a moment, he takes the seat beside Clare, propping an elbow on his knee and pressing his forehead to his palm.

Clare gets up out of her seat suddenly and heads off towards the restroom, so Anya takes the seat she just vacated. "Surprised to see you here," she says.

Declan sighs. "Someone had to drive Fi. She couldn't exactly drive herself."

"You don't have a driver for this kind of thing?"

Declan glances at her sharply, and Anya realizes how bitchy that must have sounded. "Sorry."

He shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair. "Forget it," he murmurs.

An awkward silence ensues. "I didn't know you knew Adam," she says after a moment.

Declan glances at her. "He _is _dating my sister."

"Still…you don't go here anymore."

"He's been over a few times." He shrugs. "Nice guy. Good guy. Good boyfriend."

He looks over at his sister, inconsolable in Holly J's arms. "He's so good to her," he adds, more to himself than to her.

He looks at Anya, and she's struck at the naked fear and worry on his face; Declan Coyne has always been crisp arrogance and honeyed, calm confidence. He leans back in his chair and rubs his eyes tiredly. "Why does this have to happen?"

It's a rhetorical question, and his voice is high and tinny when he says it, like a little kid asking a parent a question they can't possibly answer.

Anya leans back and rests her head against the wall. _Because fate is cruel and life is terrible_, she wants to say, but knows she can't. This place isn't the place for doubt and cynicism. She needs to stay hopeful, to be a strength to the people around her; the way she is for her own mother.

_Anya The Rock._

Anya wants to groan, but instead she just whacks her head against the wall. God, she is so fucking _tired_ of being a rock. She's so tired of putting on a hopeful face, trying to be brave, when all she wants to do is just _fall apart cry scream rage WHATEVER. _She wants to tear her hair out in fistfuls, scratch the wall with her bare nails, rip her own clothes off with her teeth, slobber like a mad dog until SOMEBODY _acknowledges_ just how fucking _awful_ this is- her mother being sick, Adam being…whatever clinical, detached word is used to describe someone as broken and hurt as he is.

"Anya?"

She opens her eyes. Sav is standing in front of her. "What?"

"Going for a coffee run. Want anything?"

She shakes her head. The last thing she wants is coffee. She doesn't need the hyper-alertness caffeine will bring her, like a hummingbird under her skin, her thoughts tumbling like clothes in a dryer. The only way she's going to be any good right now is to stay detached, staying far enough away from herself so that she doesn't completely turn into a black hole of despair and theatrics, scratching and screaming and weeping.

She glances around at the rest of her classmates sitting in the dingy waiting room. They're all trying to be strong, but inside they're all wondering what sort of news awaits them at the end of this seemingly endless night.


	5. Chapter 5

Eli comes to the ER with a bloody hand, inexpertly wrapped in paper towels and not-so-smoothly hidden underneath an overlarge hoodie with the sleeves pulled down. It looks enormous on his thin frame, making Eli look hunchback and deformed, but nobody comments on it, or on the blood-soaked rags loosely wrapped around his hand.

He doesn't run into the ER or make a huge presence of himself like Fiona, but instead slips silently, completely unnoticed by everyone. When they eventually become aware that he is there, they barely give him a passing glance- it's like he's been here all along.

In his black pants and oversized hood, he looked like a phantom, materializing out of the plaster walls. _Like the Grim Reaper,_ Clare thinks out of nowhere, and then suddenly shivers at the abominable thought. Shaking her curls furiously, she tries to banish the thought from her memory. _Try not to think of the pink elephant…_

_Oh my God,_ she thinks. _I'm cracking up._

Eli is deadly silent, standing in the corner with one foot pressed against the wall. He won't look at anyone, not even her. He just stands there, his expression inscrutable. Blood is dripping from his hand down onto the tile floor, forming a puddle by his foot. He does not seem to notice, but Clare does, and wants to ask him about it.

She can't make herself get up out of her chair, though.

To tell you the truth, if Clare were to ask Eli about his hand, he wouldn't be able to tell her. He couldn't even find the words to explain what happened, when his mother came into his room.

She'd knocked at first, but he had been listening to head phones as he worked on an essay and hadn't heard her, so she'd just come in, something that had initially irritated him. But then the annoyance quickly turned to worry, then genuine fear when he saw the look on her face and the way her hands shook.

_(Clare.)_

had been his immediate reaction

_(Something happened to Clare.)_

_(Julia.)_

_( JULIA.)_

_(Christ. Oh Jesus fucking Christ, it's Julia all over again.)_

_(Oh God)_

_(oh god oh god oh god oh god no, no, no, no, no, no, please)_

_(NONONONONONONONONONONONONO!)_

But then she told him the truth, about the phone call she'd received from Heather Poulette's mother.

And then…

He doesn't really what to say about that.

He thinks about all those people who literally get away with murder, claiming temporary insanity. Now he completely understands. This is nothing like when Julia died and all he felt was numbness. Now, it's blind rage. He's a whirlwind, tearing through and destroying everything in his path.

The room he left behind in his house is ripped to shreds, the carpet covered in shattered glass and broken furniture bits, his duvet cover thrown into a pile in a corner and his bed sheets in tangles. His curtains half-hang on a broken rod. His walls are scratched with black smudges, marks from where he hurled anything he could find- his desk lamp, his desk chair, almost his laptop. He punched a hole in the wall one, two, three times, finally breaking through, and tore at the drywall. Every inch of the place echoes with his rage- primal, cave noises; uncontrollable, inhuman.

Now, though, the anger has dissipated. He's not _not_ angry, but the urge to explode has drained out of him in the wake of the fact that if he's going to be of any use to himself, he can't afford to lose himself like that again. He has to stay sharp, stay alert.

He knew that driving was probably the stupidest thing he could do right now, but Morty is a good car, and he got him to the ER safe and sound and in one piece. Quieter than a whisper, he slips into the hospital waiting room, and is surprised to see not just Clare but so many people that he knows from school.

In a way, he's thrilled. All of these people are here for Adam, which means that they don't have to go through this alone. But at the same time, he's pissed off. He doesn't want to play the whole kumbaya part tonight, holding hands and singing hymnals and hugging each other and holding signs that say NEVER AGAIN! He doesn't want this moment to become some candlelit vigil LGBT youth rally, some political statement about how hate crimes MUST be prosecuted with all do severity. He just wants to be here, to be able to sit in this room with Clare and absorb each other's fear, to wait for any news he gets on his best friend and grieve that this atrocity even happened.

_(And hope that's the worst thing he has to grieve, but he can't bring himself to even think that)_

Selfish, yes, but he doesn't even care. His best friend was just beaten within an inch of his life- screw "appropriateness".

What's more, Clare isn't even here right now.

_Fuck. _He had been counting on her being here, her presence being enough to calm him, but she's nowhere to be found. He knows she's here- he can see her jacket slung over a chair- but she is somewhere else currently, and even though she probably just stepped out to get a coffee or use the bathroom, he still is angry with her for not being here.

_Fuck._ He leans against the wall, closing his eyes. _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._

His head and his hand are throbbing. When he first punched the wall, he didn't even feel it, nor did he feel it the entire drive over here with all the adrenaline. But now it's drained its way out of him, and the pain is starting to radiate through him, a dull, slow ache that heats up with each pulse beating in his ears.

A low, drawn-out moan makes him crack an eye open. Fiona is doubled over in a chair, practically sprawled out on top of Holly J Sinclair, who is petting her head like a cat and staring off at some space on the wall above the crown of Fiona's head. The sound pounds into his already sore temples, making the ache in his head worse, and he wishes she would just be quiet, already.

Standing nearby the girls is Alli Bhandari, whom Eli hasn't seen since Vegas Night. She stands against the wall, her eyes drifting around the room. When she sees him, her eyes widen in surprise, and to his dismay, she makes her way towards him.

"I wondered when you would show up," she says.

He closes his eyes again. "I'm surprised to see you here at all," he says, knowing it sounds mean and not caring.

He doesn't see her expression, but her tone is indignant. "I'm here for Clare," she states.

He opens his eyes long enough to glare at her. "Well, I'm here for both of them," he replies.

It's quiet, then he asks, "Where is Clare, anyway?"

"In the bathroom."

He nods, closing his eyes and willing her away.

He thinks that she has for a moment, but then he hears Alli's voice say something that his mind doesn't want to listen to, words that natter like flies buzzing by his ears until all he wants to do is smack it away.

Eli suddenly needs to get out of here. Everything about the place is hurting his senses- the lights are too bright, the smells are too strong, the noises too loud. It's too bright and hollow, and it's hurting his eyes.

"Where are you going?" Alli asks.

"Out", he says, and doesn't look back, nearly walking right into Sav as he hurries into the cold night air.


	6. Chapter 6

Clare sits on the closed porcelain lid of the toilet, dabbing her eyes and nose with a wad of toilet paper. She's not crying anymore, just trying to catch her breath and get a hold of herself, before rejoining the people waiting in the room.

Truth be told, they probably wouldn't notice if she stayed gone. Everyone's sort of in their own little world right now, locked in their own shock or fear. They barely even flicked an eyelash at her when she got up to leave, and even though she's been gone for nearly twenty minutes, nobody's come to find her.

Of course, Clare thinks, it probably has something to do with the fact that she went to the bathroom two floors up to avoid being seen.

Silly, how she doesn't want anybody to see her tears. It wasn't as if they would blame her. There was an entire room full of people who were there for her, who could put an arm around her shoulders and hold her while she cries.

But she doesn't want that.

She's not sure why. When her parents divorced and her life effectively fell apart around her, she had wanted nothing more than for _somebody_ to see her and reach out, keeping her from completely losing herself as her entire life collapsed. If not for Eli, Adam, and Alli, she would never have gotten through it.

But for some reason, this is different. Instead of acting out, desperately wanting someone to finally see her when her own family had made her invisible, now she wants nothing but. This grief she is feeling right now seems too private to share with everyone else. She doesn't want people hovering around her, clucking, bustling, touching. Doesn't want to accept their condolences with a Jack-O-Lantern smile or perform her grief, acting like she's part of some script. She just wants to be alone.

The bathroom door bursts open, and there is a click of heels against the floor. Clare freezes, then realizes that it was probably nobody she knows. After all, who would come up all the way to this floor when there is a bathroom downstairs?

The footsteps halt at the sink, but nobody turns the water on. Instead, Clare hears a low sound, like the faraway whistle of a train, followed by a sniff and then a muffled sob- someone who is trying not to do so. There is the briefest of silences, followed by the soft hiccup of tears.

Clare freezes on the toilet seat, trapped. It's probably some helpless bystander like herself, watching a train wreck unfold in front of her. Should she just stay where she is, hoping the person is done soon so she doesn't have to wait here forever? Should she get up and try to comfort them, or just get up and leave without even looking their way?

Peeking through the sliver of space between the stall door and the wall, she sees a long sheet of strawberry blonde hair being shaken loose from a ponytail, then the person look in the mirror for a moment, trying to fluff it out. Clare's eyes widen in surprise and recognition, and she steps out of the stall door hesitantly.

Holly J sees her reflection before she sees her. She doesn't get angry like Clare half-expected, but she wipes her eyes dry and shakes her head. "Shit," she mutters. "I thought for sure coming up two floors would mean I had the bathroom to myself."

Clare stands at the sink next to her. "I didn't know you were here," she says.

Holly J shrugs. "Yeah, well, I'm not really sure what I'm doing here, but I figured that this was the place to be tonight." She runs her fingers through her hair, slightly crinkled. "We're all just kind of in limbo right now."

Clare nods.

Holly J looks away from her reflection and at her for the first time. "How are you?" she asks, then blushes. "Stupid question. Probably feeling like shit."

Clare opens her mouth and then closes it again.

"I just want to curl up into a ball and dissolve," she confesses. "Just disappear." She doesn't realize she's crying at first. "This hurts _so much."_

Holly J touches her shoulder. Her eyes are full of compassion. "I wish I knew what to tell, Baby Edwards," she says. "I wish I could tell you everything will be okay, but I don't want to lie to you."

Clare shakes her head. "I don't really know what to say, either. I don't want to have to go out there and pretend like I'm in some movie or something, having to say all the right lines and make all the right moves."

Holly J nods. She understands; it is the reason that she'd come all the way up to this bathroom instead of the one down the hall from everyone. Tragedy or not, she is still Holly J Sinclair. She still needs to stay composed for everyone else, to preserve the illusion that she is still in charge and still in control. She needs to be strong for Fiona, for herself, and not let the fear and worry on everyone else's faces get to her. Yet here she is, in the girl's bathroom two floors up where no one she knows will hear or see her, a moment ago clutching the sink and crying so hard that if she were not gripping on as hard as she was with white knuckles, she would have sunk straight to the ground and probably melted through the floor in a puddle of tears. Some things are just too horrible for even Holly J Sinclair to take with an eye roll and a sarcastic quip.

Clare runs a hand through her curls and splashes some water on her face. "So…what do we do now?" she asks Holly J's reflection.

The reflection in the mirror hunches over the sink. "Oh, god, I don't know."


	7. Chapter 7

On the outside, Zane is perfectly collected.

He has been ever since they arrived here at the hospital nearly five hours ago with Riley and Anya. He's forced Drew to sit down, to sip water, to remember to breathe. He's gotten coffee for everybody else and sat in his chair, sipping his own with calm precision. He's remained steady and collected, nothing less than his normal, collected, totally Zen self.

But on the inside, he's seething. Anger bubbles inside of him, acidic, churning, burning holes in his stomach. He can barely take a sip of his coffee without his hands spilling the steaming liquid down his lap, and when he sips it, it tastes like tar in his mouth. And it's taking every ounce of his Yoga training and self-control to keep himself from snapping- throwing a chair across the room, punching a wall, screaming at the top of his lungs.

He glances over the rim of his bad hospital coffee at Riley, standing against the wall. His boyfriend's eyes stare off into a distance, lost in thought. He's surprised, and ponders this reversal of roles. Riley is the one with the temper. He's the one who is quick to anger- get mad first, ask questions later.

In truth, Riley has nothing in him to rage. He doesn't know the Drew's little brother very well, but he's seen him at LGBT the few times he had begun tagging along with Zane this semester, and likes him well enough. He's a funny guy, always making other people laugh, and Riley admires the way the kid doesn't let anything seem to get to him. Aside from Zane, he's never met someone comfortable in his own skin like Adam is, and so willing to be himself at any cost. He envies that deeply, considering all the years he spent so deeply in the closet, buried in his own self-hatred.

So when this happens- and Riley _cannot, will not_, bring himself to use the word "hate crime", reducing this kid that he thinks so highly of into another faceless statistic- he is too deeply shocked into sadness to react in normal Riley fashion.

He had always known that stuff like this happened to people like him- he'd Googled enough stories about atrocious acts of violence committed against LGBT youth all over the world to know that it happened everywhere. But this isn't just a lecture topic or club discussion anymore. This is _reality._

Knowing that things like this can and do happen every day is nothing compared to the sheer ferocity and horror of this crime. It's something too stomach-turning to rage over. This time, Riley can't even bring himself to swing a fist. Instead, he feels like he's trapped in quick sand, being pulled under while frozen in place.

Riley's eyes flicker over to Drew, sitting beside Zane. Well, beside him in the sense that he's physically present there. Metaphorically speaking, the kid's about a billion miles away, off in God knows what kind of hell his mind must be trapped in right now, worrying about his brother. He never thought he'd feel this much pity for Drew. He has to admit, the kid may be a jerk, but he's a good big brother. On the outside, Drew looks completely blank and emotionless, but Riley can't imagine what he must be feeling inside.

Next to Drew, Zane suddenly jumps up from his chair, heading towards the door. "Where you going?" Riley asks him.

Zane shrugs him off. "Outside," he says. "Get some air." He pushes past Riley and shoves open the double doors, storming off into the cold night. Riley hesitates a moment, then follows him.

Zane is standing by a wall. He glares at Riley when he sees he's been followed. "Can I just be alone for a minute, please?" he snaps.

Riley stops, but doesn't turn to leave. "I just want to know if you're okay," he tells him.

Zane's eyes blaze. "No, Riley, I'm not okay," he says. "Nothing is okay right now. Everything is just so unbelievably _fucked up!" _His boyfriend kicks the trashcan on the sidewalk. Riley stares, mesmerized and scared at the same time. He's seen Zane's anger before, but never this righteous fury, and he's never seen him out of control.

Abruptly, Zane wheels around, and with an open palm smacks the brick hospital wall behind him. "Shit," he says when he pulls his hand back and notices that it's bleeding, bits of the mortar ground into his hand.

Riley takes his hand in his, and brushes away the dirt with a calloused thumb. "You should probably get that looked at," he says.

Zane bites his lip. He's blushing, but not just from the cold. He's embarrassed at his overflow of emotions and his momentary snap of control. "No," he says. "It'll be fine." He sighs. "I'm sorry."

Riley's brow furrows in concern. "For what?"

"I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."

"Yeah, well, believe me, it's crossed my mind a few times."

"Why haven't you?"

Riley is quiet for a moment, then shrugs. "What good would it do?" he says quietly. "Adam won't be any less hurt."

Zane nods, blushing more at the futility of his actions. This whole night was pretty futile. Nothing they were going to do in that waiting room was going to ensure that Adam would pull through this alright; it was entirely out of their hands.

Riley looks at him. "You want to go back inside? It's cold out."

Zane shakes his head. "I just…I wanna stay out here a minute. Clear my head."

"You want me to stay with you?" Riley offers.

He's about to tell him no, but the words get stuck in his head. "That would be great," he says quietly.

The two of them sink down, their backs against the brick wall, and stare at the street. Riley's hand finds its way into Zane's uninjured one, and the two of them sit there, side by side in the cold, just watching the city lights make the whole world glow in the dark.


	8. Chapter 8

Declan doesn't want to leave his sister, but in the two hours that he's been there, he's come to realize that he is unnecessary. Once Holly J returns from the bathroom, she reclaims her spot next to Fiona and takes her back into her arms. By now, Fiona has stopped making those terrible sounds. She just rests her head on Holly J's shoulder, crying silently.

He gives Holly J a look, asking her if it's okay to leave, and she nods at him. He gets up and walks out of the room, not sure where he's going to go, just as long as it gets him out of here momentarily.

He ends up walking around the backside of the hospital until he comes to the ambulance loading zone, which is mostly empty except for a dark-haired boy in a black hoodie leaning up against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Declan recognizes him from inside the waiting room, but he does not know his name.

Still, he walks up to the boy. "Got an extra?" he asks him.

The boy doesn't look at him. "Got a clue?" he says. "Get lost."

Declan doesn't back off. "Free country," he argues. "Just wanted a smoke."

The boy sighs, then digs through his pocket and hands Declan a cigarette and a black lighter with a skull carved into the handle. "Suit yourself," he mutters. "These things'll kill you."

He rolls his eyes. "Well, then, looks like we'll be getting cancer together."

Declan has only smoked once in his entire life- when he was fifteen and living in Italy, he and some friends snuck out of some hoity-toity society event and had gotten drunk off some really bad wine, and they had passed around a few cigarettes between them. He didn't enjoy it at all- it felt like licking a barbeque- but right now, he needs something to keep his hands busy and his mind off what's going on in that damn room. Pushing away all the things he knows are bad about cigarettes, he lights up, suddenly wanting the cigarette so badly he could eat it.

"You know the Torres kid?" Declan asks.

The other boy glares at him, green eyes menacing. "He's my best friend," he says with homicidal intensity.

Declan nods. "He's my sister's boyfriend," he replies.

The kid now looks surprised. "Ahh, so you must be Declan."

He gives the boy a lopsided smile, a cruel mockery of his usual grin. "The one and only."

The two of them stand in silence, smoke curling around them like ribbons.

"I should go back inside," the other boy says, stomping the butt out under the toe of his black combat boot. "I need to get back inside. I can't believe I even came out here."

Declan shrugs. "You needed a break. We all do."

The kid shoots him a furious look. "And what good is that going to do?"

Declan raises his eyebrows, still calm. "More good than it'll do if you completely freak out and lose it," he says coolly.

The boy doesn't have an answer for that, so he just slumps against the wall, the hood of his sweatshirt falling over his eyes. His arms cross over his chest, and Declan sees for the first time the blood-soaked rags his hand is wrapped in.

"Whoa, what happened to your hand?"

The kid sighs, shaking his head and pulling his sleeve farther down. "It's nothing," he mutters.

"Doesn't look like nothing," Declan comments. "You should get that checked out."

"Yeah," the kid says, not really concerned. "Maybe."

They're quiet for some time, letting the cold air wrap around them, sending chills running through their bodies like tiny currents . Declan can feel the goosebumps rising on the back of his neck and his bare arms, spreading like a rumor as he and the boy stand there and smoke in silence.

Suddenly, the boy clears his throat and shakes his head, looking out at the streets, his face infinitely sad.

"This is so fucked up."

The way he says it makes Declan's stomach hurt. It's almost a whisper, not really meant for anyone else to hear, filled with so much raw grief in what he's said that it could harden the most cynical of hearts. It's the most terrible thing he's ever heard. This ceremony of grief, informal as it is, is too private to be heard by foreign ears. Feeling like an intruder, Declan leans against the brick wall and closes his eyes, taking another drag of his cigarette.

"It's hell," he agrees.

**X**

**Author's Note: Left Eli unnamed because, as this chapter is from Declan's POV, he would not know Eli's name, but Eli would probably know his from listening to Adam talk about Fiona and her family. Just pointing that out for anyone who might have been confused.**


	9. Chapter 9

Sav knew that drinking coffee was a bad idea. He can feel it curling inside his already uneasy stomach, cramping and tying his gut into knots. And the fact that it's that crappy hospital blend isn't helping, either. His skin feels like it's crawling, and his legs are shaking slightly from taking in too much caffeine at once. Tripping over himself slightly from the combination of caffeine and fatigue, he makes his way to the guy's bathroom.

Sav finds his way to a stall and does his business, then begins washing up when he hears a noise under the sound of the running water. He switches off the tap for a moment when he hears it again- unmistakably the sound of someone retching.

Sav pauses at the sink. In the mirrors, he can see the reflection of the space under the stalls, and he can clearly make out a pair of shoes on the ground in the stall farthest away from the door. He is very still for a moment, but then realizes that whoever is in there already heard him and can see his feet under the stall door.

Whoever it is, he's pretty sure it's one of his classmates- there's almost nobody else around the hospital at nearly two am. Not that he blames whoever it is. After getting the phone call from Simpson, he stayed fairly composed for a considerable amount of time, but he waited until he was sure Alli and Clare weren't able to hear him before locking himself in the bathroom and dry-heaving into the sink a few times.

Before Sav can decide to bolt and let the anonymous barfer leave the bathroom with his dignity intact, the stall door opens, and Drew steps out, his shirt flecked with vomit and his eyes red-rimmed. He looks pasty and rumpled, wholly unlike any version of Drew Sav has ever seen before.

Drew just stands there for a moment, blinking, taking a moment before it registers who he's looking at. "Oh," is all he says.

Sav leans against the sink, trapped. He reaches out and points unnecessarily at the stains on Drew's clothing. "Your shirt," he says.

Drew glances down at his stained, smelly clothing, as if for the first time realizing he's covered in his own puke. Sighing, he turns on the tap and wets a handful of paper towels, but Sav takes them out of his hands.

For a moment, the two of them just stare each other as their hands brush over the wet towels. Sav's black bag-rimmed eyes meet Drew's red ones, and for a moment, all they do is stare at each other, everything that happened hanging in the few inches of space between them.

This is the first time he's spoken to Drew in…well, since before Christmas Break, actually. He's not exactly Drew's biggest fan after Alli's fall from grace and everything that happened at Vegas Nights, but this…

Tonight sort of equalizes everything that's happened, and he's putting his own feelings aside. He's a big brother first, and can't imagine how horrible he'd feel if that were Alli lying in that room.

"Here," Sav says, taking the rag. With admirable aplomb, he kneels before Drew, dabbing the stains on his blue t-shirt.

Mercifully, the men's room is empty- it's ridiculously late (or early, depending on how one looks at it) and most of their crowd has scattered off to various parts of the hospital. Nobody comes in or asks questions, nobody pries or tries to talk to them about it.

Drew's t-shirt doesn't look much better than before, with all the water stains mapping it, but at least it's not covered in chunks anymore. He slips off his jacket and hands it to Drew, who stares at it uncertainly.

"You need something dry to wear," he tells him.

Drew nods, slipping off his t-shirt and pulling the jacket over his still-damp undershirt. The sleeves are too long and hang past where his fingers touch, the collar falling to one shoulder, and it gives Drew a charmingly small, shell-like look of vulnerability- certainly nothing previously associated with Drew Torres.

"He showed up", Drew says suddenly.

Sav glances up at him. He isn't looking at him but past him into oblivion, his eyes blank. Sav is certain that he didn't know he had spoken the words aloud.

Gently, he asks, "Who showed up?"

Drew's eyes flicker to him, like someone peeling back the folds of a heavy sleep and slowly gaining consciousness. "Adam. He showed up at the steakhouse. I…I thought he was ignoring me all day. He never answered my texts."

_Shit_. Sav doesn't know what to say, or even what to think. Drew isn't crying, but his whole body is stiff and his eyes are bottomless. He's there, Sav knows, but not really _there- _the elevator isn't reaching the top floor, there's a screw loose, the lights are on but nobody's home…

He's not sure what he expected. Would Sav feel any less terrible or powerless to help if Drew were like Fiona, completely hysterical and inconsolable?

Hesitantly, he puts a hand on Drew's shoulder, and bends his head until his chin is resting on the crown of Drew's dark hair. It's a weirdly intimate pose, one normally reserved for family, and more than likely a parent to a child, rather than a dude to another dude. But Sav is surprised to realize that it doesn't feel uncomfortable or unnatural, so the two of them just stand there under the harsh fluorescent lights, Sav's free hand still holding the wet rags and the smell of vomit curling off of them like sickly sweet perfume.

"He showed up," is all Drew says.

And all Sav can reply back, over and over again, like a chant, is, "I know. I know. I know."


	10. Chapter 10

It takes a Herculean effort to enter the waiting room again, but he does, taking a seat next to Fiona that had previously been occupied by Anya, who has disappeared in the time he was outside with Zane. He glances at the watch around his wrist, shocked to see that it has been nearly forty-five minutes that he sat with his boyfriend under the street lamps. It hasn't seemed like any time has gone by at all, but at the same time, it feels like an eternity. It's like this whole night has transformed into some weird vortex where time is irrelevant. Some hellish, slow-burning, quasi-eternity.

Riley has spent the past twenty minutes or so coming to terms with the fact that whatever is happening behind those closed doors is nothing encouraging. Granted, no one has told anything alarming, either, but if Adam just had a few broken bones or maybe even a cracked skull, he figures somebody would have told them by now.

Then again, maybe not. Maybe they're just not going to tell them anything because they're not family.

Riley wants to hold onto this little bit of hope, but knows that it's pretty futile. In the same way that Riley has somehow always _known_ that he is a homosexual, he knows that if everybody really believed that this would just blow over, then they wouldn't be here right now. They all _know- _that deep down, terrible knowing that you can chalk up to intuition or psychic ability or God's voice speaking to you- whatever happens to float your boat. As much as Riley wants to think that everything is going to be okay, he knows that he is kidding himself.

Riley glances around at his classmates, some familiar and some not, in various states of emotions. Some are somber, some are obviously distressed, and others are reasonably composed, trying not to fall apart in front of so many people. He realizes that no matter what the outcome of this night, none of the Degrassi students gathered here will ever forget this experience, sitting in this bland hospital waiting room with its sticky vinyl seats and ugly tile floor, awaiting Adam Torres's fate.

All at once, something shifts in the room, a seismic change in the pressure that makes Riley snap back to reality. A doctor has just come into the waiting room, white coat and honey hair twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck, asking for the family of Adam Torres.

Riley watches the parents and the brother step forward, closer towards the doctor, as she motions for them to follow her farther down the hall and away from the crowd. Although nobody follows them, he knows that every eye is on the family, lasering through their retreating backsides as they walk away.

Beside him, Fiona buries her face deep into her hands, her wails soft and plaintive. He watches her for a moment, unsure, then reaches out and places a hand on the middle of her back. Each finger he lays down one at a time, unsure of how she would react if he latched on all at once. After all, they hadn't exactly parted ways under the best of circumstances last year, and they haven't spoken to one another since then.

Fiona peers out from behind her hands. She looks surprised, but doesn't pull away. It's clumsy and self-conscious, but she can feel the lumbering tenderness all the same, and is surprised that such softness can come from such a behemoth body. His eyes are gentle and tired, and that is something she never expected either. She did not see this side of Riley when she was with him.

_(Then again, Riley was not exactly himself when he was with her)_

Sniffing tremendously, she tries to gather herself as best she can, though what would it really prove? It's not like she hasn't spend the last few hours falling apart in front of her student body. She looks down at her knees, then places her palm on her forehead, cradling her head. "God, I have such a headache."

Riley's hand uncertainly rubs a few half-circles into the flimsy fabric of her nightgown, and he takes her coat that is flung at her feet and wraps it around her shoulders.

"Thanks," she murmurs, to which he just nods.

Fiona pulls the folds of the fabric tight around herself. "I wish they could just tell us something," she mutters. "I'm going crazy with all this waiting."

Riley nods again. "Well, I'm sure they'll tell us what's happening when they come back."

Fiona sighs and shakes out her hair, running her fingers through the tangled curls. "I'm not even sure I _want_ to know," she admits. "I'm afraid of what they'll say."

"Me, too," he admits.

"I didn't know you knew Adam," Fiona muses.

He shrugs. "Seen him around at LGBT." He pauses. "He's really cool. I like the guy a lot."

Fiona sniffs. "Yeah," she mumbles, staring into her lap.

Riley touches her knee. "I'm sorry," he says, feeling like a jerk for upsetting her all over again and wishing he was better at consoling.

Fiona shrugs, not meeting his face. Her shoulders tense and her hands contort in her lap for a moment, trying to keep herself from crying.

"I'm glad," she begins. "You know, about you and the whole LGBT thing. I mean it. I think it's really great."

Riley can feel himself blushing, and he takes his hand off her knee, feeling ashamed of himself. It seems so over-the-top, now, the way he treated Fiona last year, when all she had been trying to do was help him.

And now here they are.

"I'm glad," he echoes back. Fiona lifts her head to look at him, and he meets her gaze. "Just wish it'd been a little sooner, is all."

She smiles, sad and small and watery, but it's still a smile nonetheless.

They sit there for awhile in silence, occasionally glancing up as their classmates come in and out of the waiting room, sometimes with coffee and snacks and sometimes just wandering in and out like they really have no idea where or what they are doing.

"You don't have to stay here," Fiona says unexpectedly, and Riley looks up. "If you wanna leave or something, it's fine. Really. There's plenty of people here for me."

Riley glances around at the waiting room. Anya's missing, and Zane is still outside. Sav has gone AWOL, but his little sister and Clare Edwards are sitting on the wall opposite Riley and Fiona; Clare is leaning on the other girl's shoulder looking like a statue, while her companion looks like she's drifting off to sleep. Wherever the hell Fiona's brother has gone he has no idea, and Holly J Sinclair, who has more or less been Fiona's handler by proxy since arriving, is nowhere to be seen, either.

"Yeah," Riley says. "Right."

**Author's Note: Short, I know. But I didn't want to leave you guys hanging with nothing. I've gotten so many lovely reviews; really, guys, I'm so happy. I really am trying hard on this story, and I still harbor a lot of insecurities about the way it's turning out, but the reviews keep me going. So thank you to everyone who ever took the time to write out a review. Plus, I really wanted some Fiona/Riley interaction where they don't hate each other. Next chapters will be more action-y, promise. **

**Fiona would think that, right? I love her, but the girl can be a tad self-centered sometimes. **


	11. Chapter 11

Anya stands at the vending machine, wishing that she had laser vision like some comic book character, able to saw through solid sheetrock and steel with red beams shooting out of her eyes. But no matter how much she stares at the glass vending machine case before her, she can't make the 99 cent bag of Cheez Doodles become unstuck from the row of rings.

Frustrated and exhausted, Anya rests her head on the cool glass case. She's tired of being in this hospital, tired of looking into her classmates' pinched, weary faces, and most of all, waiting to hear the inevitable.

She shakes her head and squeezes her eyes shut tight, a small child trying to ward off the monsters she is certain are lurking in the dark night. She doesn't need to think like that.

That's why she had to get out of that godawful waiting room. Get out, take a walk for awhile, move around, clear her head. That room is beginning to remind her of a black hole; a region from which nothing that enters ever escapes- no light, hope, faith, or optimism. Feeding off the collective terror and worries of all the people crowded in there, a dark child born of their own worst fears. If she stayed in this room, it would suck her down with the rest of them, absorbing every last shred of light they still had left to cling to.

She wonders about what will happen once, as every black hole does, it reaches the "event horizon"- the point of no return. The end of this night, when fate has made its decision and there is either one outcome or the other, instead of this terrible limbo they're hovering in.

Forcing herself very hard to not think about it, she had propelled herself out of her chair, nearly power walking out of the waiting room and heading down the hospital corridors. As she lost herself in the labyrinth of colorless hallways and overbright lights, she was pleasantly surprised to see that everything here was pretty much as per usual to the hospital she visits when her mother gets her treatments, despite being on the other side of town. But apparently, if you have seen one hospital, you had seen them all. Everything here is normal procedure: the unsympathetic fluorescent lights that nearly blind you with their over-brightness, the terrible Styrofoam coffee, the ding of the elevator. There is comfort in this routine and precision, and it helps push some of those terrible thoughts to the back of her mind, at least for now.

Anya would rather go anywhere else than back to that waiting room, but she can't stand here forever, locked in a staring contest with an impassive vending machine. Still, she stays rooted in place, hoping that just a few more minutes of standing in place might be enough to earn her the bag of Cheez Doodles and a few more stolen moments away from being sucked into the waiting room's despairing orbit.

Bargaining. It makes her want to snort. The sheer ridiculousness of the idea- bargaining with something higher than you were, with chips that couldn't possibly hold any real weight in the grand cosmic conjuncture of the universe.

Anya is well-versed in the concept of bargaining. When her mother was first diagnosed, a hospital psychologist had sat her and her parents down and spoken to them on the idea that a lot of patients and families had when they or someone they loved was diagnosed with an illness. Denial, the counselor had explained, is an important coping mechanism. The sick person- or the family of the sick person- may be in denial of the entire situation because the possibility of death is too frightening, overwhelming, and too much of a threat to their sense of control. It is a natural form of protection, allowing the reality of the situation to sink in bit by bit as the parties can contemplate death. And, the counselor had pointed out, as long as denial did not cause any harm, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

The counselor had also told them that, sometimes, families found it helpful to talk to a spiritual advisor of some sort. Did they attend church? Did they have a pastor, rabbi, priest, some other kind of spiritual consultant they could speak to if the need be for a neutral mediator? It might, she had suggested, provide insight they hadn't previously found, and if anything else, it was just a place to open up and be honest with one another. Sometimes, that was easier with an uninvolved party there to diffuse the tension and make everyone's opinion heard.

Her father proclaims to not believe in anything, but her mother had gone to Catholic school from childhood onward, though she doesn't go to church anymore or show any outward signs of still practicing her faith. When was the last time she had been in a church? Probably her grandmother's funeral, when she was in junior high- seventh or eighth grade, Anya can't remember. All she remembers is going into the chapel, not really there for anything except out of obligation and to pay her respects to her grandmother.

She remembers thinking: _I don't know what I'm supposed to be thinking._

Was she supposed to be praying for her grandmother's soul? Praying that it was in heaven? Praying that she was in a better place, as some relatives claimed?

Did she even believe in heaven? In a "better place?" In God himself, with a capital G?

Anya cannot answer those questions, anymore now at 17 than she could back then at 13.

What she does know, however, is that there is no deep revelation, no epiphany, no abrupt moment where everything is all at once suddenly, profoundly clear. Anya had felt that in the church where they had paid their last respects to her grandmother, wondering if there really was any sort of presence in this room or if they had really just been talking to nobody and all they were doing was getting on their knees in front of a wooden box. She feels it when she turns to herself in anger, wanting to throw her head into the sky and shout out her fury that this illness has happened to her family, and the great injustice of the whole universe in general.

And she felt that in the waiting room, the same unasked question bubbling on each other classmates' lips- _why?_

_The answer is that there is no answer, _Anya thinks. _That's life. There's really nothing you can do about it. It's messy and painful and sometimes it's just really, really hard. But if you put in virtue and expect to get rewards, you're going to be disappointed. It's not a vending machine; you don't get what you put into it._

Apparently _that _wasn't even true; she stares at the stuck bag of Cheez Doodles once more, disgruntled, then kicks the base of the machine. Her foot throbs with the jolt, and she feels tears prickling in her eyes, more from the futility of it all than any actual pain.

_Stupid machine, _she yells inside her own head. She kicks it again, harder this time, and bends her head forward, knocking her forehead against the glass, tears pooling in her eyes.

So what if she is optimistic or not. So what if she keeps up a straight face for the sake of her other classmates. So what. So what. SO WHAT. None of it matters. Nothing any of them do will ever make this okay, or make anything okay, for that matter. It's all a futile waste of time; there is no point in anything they do tonight, because this isn't up to them. Deny it all you want, but it's not going to stop it any. Whatever has their fate and Adam's- whether it's God or Buddha or the Easter Bunny or it's all some cosmic, random accident- it isn't going to be swayed by anything, whether it was prayer or denial or a child's tears.

"Anya?"

Her head stops banging against the machine, and she turns around to see Sav standing to her left, his hands in his pockets and looking a bit sheepish at having caught her in the act. She pulls away, as if it is perfectly normal to have been caught banging one's head against a vending machine.

"What?" she snaps.

"Uhhh, you okay?"

_What kind of question is that. _"Does it look like it?"

He takes a step closer to her, eyeing the Cheez Doodles. "All that for a pack of chips?" he says lightly.

Anya takes a step back and tucks her hair behind her ears, trying to regain some control over herself. "Yeah," she mutters, feeling kind of silly now at her little outburst.

He shrugs, like he's reading her mind. "Hey, I guess we're all feeling a little insane tonight."

She nods, and watches as he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a dollar and feeding it to the machine. The rings to a complete turn inside the glass case, and there's a light whump at the bottom as two bags of Cheez Doodles fall into the slot at her feet.

Anya reaches down and plucks them out. "Thanks," she says, offering him one.

He shakes his head. "Naw, don't worry about it."

Such a gentlemanly thing to do. No, she amends, such a Sav thing to do- wanting to please people, wanting to do whatever he needed to in order to make them happy.

She regards this boy standing in front of her carefully. If anyone still believes in the basic goodness of life, it is Sav. An easygoing guy who up until now has not seen much of the sobering side of the world that doesn't cotton well to those drunk on their own dreams, their own ignorance.

It makes her pity him a little.

With her mother's diagnosis- not to mention the at-time "crushing" (relatively speaking) revelation that she and Sav were not meant to be together- had come a new kind of understanding to Anya. Instead of the dreamy, positive girl that she had been, she had gained the understanding that there was very little that actually mattered in life, and what did could be taken away from you without a moment's notice. You were crazy to want so much- it meant you had so much more to lose. Nothing ever turned out like you thought it would. A lot of dreams tended to die on the vine before they ever came to fruition, and it was totally possible to look at your life and have absolutely no idea how you ended up in the place you were from the place you'd once been.

Maybe it's a little too pessimistic and overdramatic for Anya to be feeling like she's going through a midlife crisis at 17, but she's at a point in her life where she's really starting to feel and understand for the first time how futile everything is.

It makes her feel deep, to think something like that. But not in a way that makes her feel good. It's in a way that makes her feel old and used up, her youth and innocence and belief in life gone forever.

**Author's Note: Ehhhhhh, not sure about this. I thought it was an important point to make, but didn't turn out like I wanted to write it. **


	12. Chapter 12

It's driving Holly J crazy that there is absolutely nothing she can do about any of this. She's a "doer", prone to sinking her teeth into something with a fierce, terrier-like insistency and not letting go until it's fixed.

The presidential part of her wants to start setting things in motion immediately. Get the ball rolling- debrief all her cabinet members, plot out a course of action, figure out the best possible way to handle this. She's a "fixer" as much as a "doer", and she needs to fix this.

Trouble is, she can't, and it's driving her nuts. Every time she takes in the reality of the situation, she feels like she's running into a wall over and over again- _I can't fix this. I can't make it better. I can't do anything._

It makes her feel at loose ends. She hates this total powerlessness.

The Torres family had come from their meeting with the doctor a few moments ago. Although she knew it was impolite to do so, she'd stared down the three of them, studying their facial expressions for any signs of what kind of news they might have been told. But if she had been looking for some kind of body language clue, she had been disappointed- Mr. Torres looked somber and reasonably composed, Mrs. Torres pale and tight-lipped, looking at her wit's end, and Drew looked blank and defeated.

They didn't offer any information as to what was happening, and nobody dared ask. Holly J is dying to know, but at the same time, she doesn't want her fears confirmed. Either way she sees it, whatever they know isn't anything good. Either Adam's condition is very severe and they are just trying not to scare the rest of them, or that they are just struggling with a way to wrap their head around the unthinkable knowledge of a worst case scenario.

When she had first arrived at the ER, she had asked one of the orderlies working at the front desk for any information, but all they had been able to say is the most bare-boned, chilling basics: cranial and internal injuries. In the OR. No word yet on anything good or bad, they all will know of anything as soon as the staff knows.

They'll all know.

She doesn't really want to know.

Cranial injuries. No word yet on how severe it is, but Holly J knows that if it weren't really terrible, then they would have told them by now. Nobody gets this reticent over a little bump on the head.

Severe head trauma. If he lives, recovery is going to be major. No escaping this vigil with an, "oh, he's alright, don't forget to sign the GET WELL SOON! banner in homeroom so we can bring it when we visit him later on this afternoon".

_If he lives._

She shivers and wants to throw up.

God, she has to get out of here. She needs to do _something,_ other than just stand here and wait, wait, wait.

What time is it? She glances at her watch. Nearly three AM. She's been here since around 10, when her mother had gotten the phone call from Principle Simpson himself. He had told her that she would probably be needed at school early in the morning, both her and Sav. They were going to have an assembly the next morning, and as president and his vice, their presence would be required. They might even have to make a speech of some kind, Simpson had explained, his voice dazed and uncertain. She hadn't asked him what kind of speech she would be required to make; what could she possibly say? Wasn't this the kind of thing the LGBT club should be covering? They would know what to say.

Of course, Holly J hadn't thought about that then. She had only nodded into the phone and agreed with everything that Simpson had told her, hanging up in mute shock when their exchange was done and she heard dial tone droning in her ears. It had been too much to absorb all at once, and she hadn't been able to think as clearly as she normally did.

Christ. School.

What the hell is she going to tell everybody?

This whole night threw a wrench in everything. At this point, Holly J is willing to renounce her position in SGA, take a long time off from school, let all of her work go to hell, if it means that this night will just end the way she wants it to. She can't just stay here all night long and then show up for school the next day the same as any other, expected to do her regular duties with no wavering.

Of course she does. Life goes on. Morning will come, this night will end, and when it does, either outcome, you will still be expected to go on with your day. With your life. It doesn't stop for anybody

_Stop obsessing,_ she scolds herself, whumping her head against the wall harder than necessary. _There is no point in obsessing over it. You need to stop driving yourself nuts. It's not helping_.

Yeah, right. Telling Holly J Sinclair to stop obsessing is like telling a leg to be an arm. It's just not the way it is wired and designed to be.

"Did you think about what you're going to say?" she suddenly asks Sav, who is standing nearby to her.

He glances at her, confused. "Hmm?"

"The assembly," she reminds him. "The one Simpson told us they were going to have tomorrow. Today," she amends, remembering that now they are in the newborn hours of tomorrow, which is now today; that the blackness outside has bled like spilled ink into the lines of another day.

He blinks blearily. "Oh," he says. "No, I haven't."

She sighs. "Well, we'll need to. We'll need to figure out something to say. Not sure why he wants us to say something; I mean, I know we're the student government heads and all, but they should probably have let the LGBT club handle this kind of thing, they'd really know what to say in this type of situation, better than us, anyway. Maybe I can get in contact with one of them. What's the club president's name? Larissa, right? Larissa Moon? She's in our grade, right? You have her number? Maybe I can call her. Wait, it's like three AM, she's probably not going to pick up…but if I leave a message, maybe she can get it before she goes to school in the morning, maybe meet us there early and we can work something out before the assembly…"

"HJ," Sav says, cutting across her babbling. "We don't need to think about this now."

"Yes, we do!" she insists. She feels silly, making such a big deal about this assembly, but right now, she needs _something_ to occupy her thoughts. She's grasping at straws here and she knows it, but she just can't _stand_ this emptiness anymore. She has to make herself busy, feel in control of _something, _somehow, or else she'll go out of her fucking mind.

Sav looks at her gently, then draws his arms around her and pulls her close. She leans against him, closing her eyes and resting her head on his shoulder. It's the closest they've been since the aftermath of Declan's party; they haven't touched each other in months, barely spoken unless it's about SGA stuff.

"Don't worry about it, okay?" he whispers into her hair. "It's not important. It'll work out."

She nods her head and closes her eyes against him, wanting so badly to believe that those are magic words that can be applied as a blanket, an all-purpose phrase that suddenly makes everything better.


	13. Chapter 13

Zane brushes his hair out of his eyes and groggily stares out at the streets of the city, dimly lit under the bare streetlights. Strange, he thinks, that even when it's this incredibly late- or incredibly early, depending on how you look at it- the city is still alive, albeit much less animated. He knows this logistically- Toronto is a big city, of course- but he's never actually experienced the hum of this place this early in the morning, when the rest of the world is normally fast asleep. Garbage trucks are making their rounds. Delivery vans zoom by. A car with a Pizza Planet dome whizzes past every so often. The city is still awake, even at this ungodly hour.

There are people still out, too. The usual detritus of a big city- vagrants and winos and homeless people of all creed and color, wandering around in shambled clothes too cold for this time of year, shuffling their feet along the sidewalk with their heads down. He can only imagine where they're going or what they're thinking right now. But there are others, too- the bus stop is nearby the hospital, and he can see the figures of all sorts of average people there- fuzzy-eyed college kids with backpacks and a pillowcase in hand, a businessman in a rumpled suit, even a young family with a sleeping baby passed out on the mother's shoulder, standing in the bus terminal laden with suitcases. He watches them and wonders what their stories are, wondering what kind of life could condemn them to waiting at a dingy city bus stop in a sketchy area of town at three o'clock in the morning.

Sighing, Zane closes his eyes and leans his head back against the brick wall. Riley has gone inside, and as much as he is grateful for his boyfriend's unwavering support, he's happy now for the alone time. He just needs to sit in the dark, take a few deep breaths of cold air, clear his head, and calm himself entirely before going back inside. Inhaling very slowly, he tries to remember the breathing exercises from Yoga, willing the tenseness to drain out of his body and an ease to calm him down.

_In, two, three, four,_ he chants to himself, feeling his chest puff up and his shoulders tense, _out, two, three, four. Breathe in, two three, four…_

A sound irks him out of the quiet impromptu of his meditation. His eyes open in irritation, glancing around.

Not far away from where he's against the brick wall, a tiny figure leans against a light post. Well, leaning isn't exactly the right term. More like hanging off of it, or hanging onto it like there is nothing else holding him up from falling right to the ground. Watching the figure, Zane suddenly gets the scary feeling that if the person fell, he wouldn't just fall onto the sidewalk, but through the earth itself.

_Whoa,_ he backpedals, _where the hell did that come from?_

The second thing that strikes him is the way the figure is dressed. He's got on long pants, but the only thing covering the top half of his body is a flimsy white v-neck t-shirt- no sweater, no coat, no jacket, no nothing. And while it's not the middle of winter, it isn't exactly warm outside. There's a fine layer of ice on the sidewalk, not enough to really be dangerous but enough to make you watch your footing, and Zane can see his breath in the frigid air, which has already numbed his fingers and the tips of his ears.

Even from where he sits, he can see the other figure breathing, but that worries him even more. The figure isn't breathing normally. His breath is coming out in huffs, his chest heaving with the effort, and even from here Zane can hear the horrible noises accompanying it-choking and gasping, like he's literally strangling himself with the effort to breathe.

Against his better judgment, Zane takes a couple hesitant steps forward towards the thin, shivering figure.

"Hey," he says gently, slowly, the voice you use to gentle a scared child after a terrible nightmare, "are you alright?"

No, he realizes, the moment he gets close enough to really see the mysterious figure. Things are most definitely _not _okay.

Eli doesn't react to Zane at all as he approaches, but continues to grip the streetlight with white-knuckled panic, his head tucked to his chest as those awful, inhuman noises ravage his throat, jaggedly tearing through his entire body like a ripsaw. His hair is falling every whichaway, and his knees are shaking so badly that they are slipping from underneath him on the icy ground. If Zane didn't know any better, he would say that the Goldsworthy kid is possessed or something. Any minute now, he half-expects his head to snap up and reveal red, slitted eyes, barfing up green vomit into Zane's face as his head rotates 360 degrees.

Zane has no idea how he can handle this situation properly, so, slowly and carefully as possible, he steps towards Eli Goldsworthy until they are both standing underneath the sparse, yellow light of the streetlamp up above. He wants to reach out and put an arm around the kid, or help him stand up before he falls onto the cold pavement, but it's like approaching a penned wild animal- the slightest touch, and they bolt. He's not sure how Eli would handle being touched right now, and he doesn't want to make the situation any worse.

"Eli," he whispers, still in his "child" tone, low and soft, "is everything okay?"

Eli just crumbles. It's unnatural, like a skyscraper suddenly leveling with the ground. He doesn't just fall down- he literally collapses, just like that old cliché about a puppet with the strings cut. All at once, Eli's limbs seem to morph into spaghetti, and he simply falls towards the ground.

Quick as a reflex, Zane darts his arms out and grabs the kid under his armpits, hauling him into a standing position before he can hit the sidewalk. Eli's head falls against him, and Zane can feel his shoulders shaking, the boy's chest heaving against his own, his heart a hammer under flimsy cloth. Eli breathes more of those dry, strangled breaths into Zane's ear, and he wonders if the boy could be having an asthma attack, or some kind of seizure.

_Good thing we're at a hospital_, he thinks dimly, trying to get a grip on the boy, as boneless and slippery as spaghetti in his arms.

Zane holds Eli up as best he can and tries to get the boy to look him in the eyes. "Eli," he calls.

Eli doesn't look at him, but instead stares off into the space over Zane's shoulder. He looks terrified, the whites of his eyes pulsing, like whatever it is that he's seeing has attached itself to his retinas, forcing him to watch it over and over again.

"Eli," he calls again louder and more firmly.

This time, the boy registers his voice. His eyes roll to Zane, panicked and dilated, and for the first time, Zane is scared, too. He doesn't know anything about this kid. What if something really is wrong with him?

Eli looks like he's trying to force words out, but his whole body is trembling so badly that he can't. Zane holds on tighter, hoping to steady him and trying to swallow his own fear.

"I…I don't…no…I can't…" Eli mutters. He leans against Zane and tries to take a step forward, but instead falls again, his legs buckling uselessly underneath him.

Zane braces himself for the dead weight of Eli in his arms, trying his best to hold them both up without toppling over onto the icy concrete. In that moment, he is infinitely grateful that Eli is a good four or five inches shorter than he is, and much more slight- he could not imagine doing this with more solid guys like Riley, K.C., or Drew.

But then again, he doesn't imagine scenarios where other guys simply fall apart on top of him, either.

"Easy," he mutters, grabbing a hold of the thin cotton v-neck. "Easy."

Once he is sure that he has a firm grip on Eli, he begins marching the two of them back into the hospital. His arms are burning with the effort of holding him upright, and his nails dig into the freezing cold flesh on Eli's forearms, but something tells Zane that the kid could really care less at this point about the half-moons Zane is digging into his pale skin. He doesn't protest in the slightest as Zane practically drags him into the building. His breathing is slightly quieter now, less ragged, but he's still gulping for air like a drowning person. His chest is tight as he struggles, and Zane can feel every desperate gasp through his paper-thin clothes. Still, he figures that if Eli were really having an asthma attack, it would be a lot more serious than this, and the kid would probably be turning blue or something.

His arms ache, and he wants to set Eli down, but he doesn't think this is the appropriate place to do it. He wants someplace quiet, dark, safe, where the boy can finish falling to pieces in peace without the hospital orderlies bustling and rushing and the harsh lights and noise. Steering him through the walls with force-marched, grim determination, they weave through the naked corridors until they come to the hospital chapel, aptly marked **SANCTUARY **over the doorway. Without pausing to see who else may be in there, he strides in and sits Eli down on one of the pews, feeling his arms gasp in relief as Eli drops onto the bench, curled into a comma on the hard wood.

Zane stares at the still-panting, ice-cold figure lying on the bench and wonders what to do next. He doesn't know a single thing about this kid, hasn't spoken a single word to him all year, and only knows him casually by name and sight. He knows that he's dating Clare Edwards, and he probably should go find her and let her handle this because she'd know what to do much better than he does, but he doesn't want to leave Eli alone for an instant, and he doesn't know Clare's phone number. Feeling utterly helpless, he gets on his knees so that he's eye-level with Eli, and gently pushes some of the hair out of the boy's eyes.

"Eli," he says, in that same tone as before, "is there…is there anything I can do for you? Someone I can call? Clare? One of your parents?"

The boy doesn't respond, doesn't even look at him. Zane's stomach sinks.

"Look," he's surprised to find himself saying, "I don't know what to do. I need you to tell me what's wrong. I don't want to leave you like this, and I can't help you unless I know what's wrong. You can tell me," he adds, a desperate waver in his voice that he doesn't like. "It'll all be okay."

_What a stupid thing to say_, he thinks, wanting to beat himself up for that. _Of course it won't be okay. Who am I _kidding_? _

This last absurd statement, Eli registers. His eyes flicker to Zane, and the gaze is so filled with agony that it's like someone stabbed Zane right in the chest.

"You can't," he says simply. His voice is hoarse and scratchy, coated with tears, although he's completely dry-eyed. "You can't make this better. Nothing can. Nobody can. It's over. It's all over. It's gone. He's gone. Nobody can save this. It's done. It's over. He's gone, he's gone, he's gone…"

This last part he repeats over and over again, soft and acknowledged as a prayer. His eyes glaze over as he chants the words, his body quivering and his arms drawn tightly to his chest. His actions are less violent than when they were outside, but this quietness scares Zane even more.

_Oh my god,_ he thinks wildly, _he's having a breakdown of some kind. Oh Christ, what do I do now?_

Zane rests his hand on Eli's head, brushing the fringe out of his eyes, then suddenly stands up and takes a seat on the bench, resting the boy's head in his lap. He runs his fingers through Eli's hair, not really knowing what to do. Eli doesn't pull away or try to adjust his position at all, so Zane just stays where he is, combing the boy's messy tangles with his fingers.

_Strange,_ Zane thinks somewhere in the back of his mind. He's never been this…intimate with anyone before. Not with his family, not with Riley, not with the two boyfriends he had at his old school. Ironic, how the most intimate

_(and that's not really the word for it, because there is no love involved, but Zane can't think of another word to describe sitting here in the dark, a strange boy's head in his lap as Zane's fingers gently brush his forehead, and another arm rubs his back in little circles) _

moment of his life should be born out of something so….eerie. This is different- not an intimacy born of love, trust, and desire, but one built off of something so insane and off-kitler that he can't define it. So instead of trying, he just sits where he is, continuing his tender ministering with a foggy acknowledgement of the oddness of this moment.

Zane loses track of how long they sit there in the dark, mostly in total silence save for Eli's increasingly fading whispers, but then all of a sudden, the other boy says clearly, "I want to die."

Startled, Zane's hands halt in his hair, and he stares down at him. "What do you mean?" he asks nervously.

Eli doesn't look at him, but says, "I mean it. I really just want to _die._ I can't _stand _this anymore. I can't do this. I can't do this again. I thought it would just kill me the first time and be over with, but it didn't, and now…I can't. Not again. I just want to die and get it over with. No more. I can't do this anymore. I want it all to just be over. Go to sleep, gone forever. Please," he adds, upturning his face to peer at Zane. "I just want to _die_."

He can't even respond to that. His words are so soft, but serrated with so much truth, that Zane feels like he's going to be very sick.

Eli flips himself over on Zane's lap, his face buried into the taller boy's knees. Then a sound ripples through him, low and deep and faraway sounding. It's not like any sound he's ever heard from a human before, a moan so tortured that it sounds like an animal in the throes of dying. Eli just lies there and makes that one noise, over and over again, a supernote that goes on forever, echoing like a train whistle crying through a silent night.

**Author's Note: Did anyone else bawl like a baby last night? Seriously, THIS is why we love Munro Chambers. He is just…brilliant. So much pain, so much raw, intense anguish. Did it just make anyone else's heart HURT to watch that episode? I cried for over an hour afterwards, no joke. It was just so fucking raw and real.**

**Okay, so on a slightly more optimistic note, did anyone just go "awwww" when Wes and Dave made up? I loved how they just wrestled like a couple of puppies, happy and goofy. Seriously, Spencer Van Wyck is too damn cute for words. I just wanna cuddle him. Not Dave's biggest fan, though. What a jerk.**


	14. Chapter 14

**3:29 AM**

It isn't often that Declan Coyne comes to a point where he has no idea what his next move is. He's methodical, calculating, and most of all, very, very patient (well, okay, in most cases). He usually knows exactly when the right time to go is; on the flipside, also knows when to hold back and let the next move come to him.

But occasionally, he finds himself standing in front of a resolutely immovable brick wall, unable to go forward or around it.

And those are the moments that he hates the most- those moments of uncertainty, because this is a problem that money or charm can't fix.

He's come to that point now.

**3:17 AM**

Declan stands in the opposite corner of the waiting room, watching with an iron knot in his stomach as Sav embraces Holly J, stroking her red hair and running a hand down her back. Her arms wrap around him and her head rests on the shelf between his head and his shoulder. When they pull away, she tucks her hair behind her ears in the way Declan remembers, and it still makes his stomach flip like something right out of a silly love song. She stares off into nothing, blinking back exhaustion. He can tell the effort to remain composed is eroding her like limestone as she resolutely tries keep her dignity intact.

Her attitude doesn't surprise Declan in the slightest- he knows how he is- but what surprises him is the fact that she is even here in the first place. Does she know Adam? How would she, a senior, when the kid is only a sophomore?

Then again, what the hell does he know? It's not like he has been around, and besides, the few times he's talked to Adam, Declan's never mentioned his ex, nor has he ever talked to Holly J about Adam.

Not like he's chatty with Holly J about much of anything these days, all things considered.

Declan runs his fingers through his hair, trying his hardest to not think about that. He's got enough on his mind right now to think about without dredging up all those awful memories. He needs to stay here, stay composed, stay centered. Be Declan Coyne, Wall of Confidence, Unshakeable, Impervious To Damage.

**3:31 AM**

He's never been at a loss for words before. He has made practically a career out of words- negotiation, manipulation, convincing, bribing. Yet here he is, speechless.

**SANCTUARY-****ROOM A3**

The brick wall that was the sign for the hospital chapel glares back at him from its position, mounted on the wall. It's almost like it's mocking him in some way.

_No, _Declan tries to tell himself. _Ridiculous. You're overtired and don't know what you're saying. That's just ridiculous. It's just a sign._

_Just a sign._

A sign of what- his fear, his worry, his need to do something to make him feel more in control than he felt right now?

_Stop that, Coyne. It's a fucking SIGN. And no, not in a metaphysical sense. It's a piece of plastic with words scrawled on it. Nothing more._

**3: 21 AM**

As if she is reading his mind, Holly J stands up, gently easing Fiona out of her lap, and strides off the hospital corridor, and he inwardly breathes a sigh of relief. At least when she's gone, he doesn't have to think about her quite so much. Out of sight, out of mind.

Or at least, that's what he tries to tell himself.

**3:34 AM**

Strange. He hasn't been into a church in years. The last time he went, he was a small boy- second or third grade, he can't really remember- and his parents went to Mass at the Vatican on Christmas Eve, with Pope John Paul II presiding. Not that his family was resolutely Catholic or anything- it had been more of a formality than anything else.

Declan doesn't puts much stock into religion. Okay, he doesn't put _any _stock into it. He can never remember a time when he actively prayed for something and really believed that it would come true. It was like Santa Claus- make a perfectly ridiculous wish and believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's going to come true, when really it's just a silly little tale told to children to make them behave.

It's been a long, long time since Declan believed in Santa, but even as he grew up, he would find it funny and slightly ironic that Santa Claus, supposedly the most benevolent and jolly force in the world, is really nothing more than the World's Best Plea Bargainer- be good, and you'll be rewarded with whatever you want. Be bad, and everything you want will be denied and you'll be left with nothing.

Religion doesn't mean anything to him. It's so childish, a security blanket to cling to when things get rough, the impossible and illogical hope that everything will be alright after the parents have chased the monsters out of your bedroom closet and from under your bed.

**3:23 AM**

Declan takes the seat next to Fiona, who holds her forehead in the palm of her hand.

"You alright?" he asks her.

"My head's pounding," she mutters, wincing as the light assaults her tired, swollen eyes.

Declan spies her handbag at his sister's feet. Rummaging through it, he finds a bottle of Advil, and hands her two capsules.

"Thanks," she says gratefully, swallowing them without water.

"No problem."

They sit in silence for awhile. Riley, who has been sitting on the other side of his sister, suddenly stands up and stretches himself out, wincing and rubbing the creaking muscles in his neck.

"Anyone want anything to drink?" he asks. "I'm gonna grab a soda or something."

Fiona grabs a dollar out of her bag. "Could you grab me a Sprite?"

"Sure."

"I'm okay," he replies, suddenly aware of how hungry he is. "But do they have any food around here?"

Riley shrugs. "Dunno. Cafeteria's closed, but there's a vending machine somewhere."

Declan nods, getting to his feet. It's funny that even during such a time, he still feels the urge to eat something. It seems so out of place and a little bit wrong on some front, to do something so mundane and part of an ordinary daily routine when the normalcy of their world had been momentarily suspended. But his stomach is still growling and his head still felt light, all signs that his body needed some form of nourishment. So even while their minds are trapped in this _Twilight Zone _vortex of dismembered reality, their bodies still remain anchored in the ordinary.

He turns to Fi. "Want me to get you something?"

She shakes her head. "I don't think I could keep anything down. Just a soda to sip."

He gives her a pallid, weary smile before heading down the hallway.

**3:35 AM**

_There are no atheists in foxholes._

The old cliché comes back to him as he stands before the sign directing him to the sanctuary.

_(So aptly named, and yet so ironic at the same it really a sanctuary for anyone? Did the act of simply going into the church mean that you were safe from whatever the world could throw at you, whatever barbs and sharp edges could cut you?)_

Declan wonders where the cliché came from. Who was the first to realize that, whenever life got too insane, religion was often a place to turn? Putting yourself in front of some sort of higher power who managed to hold the entire world in Its hands, and could make everything alright with the simple life of a finger? Was this what happened to everyone who was faced with something so unthinkable that you couldn't even begin to sort through how you might feel about it?

Maybe it wasn't about that. Maybe it was the peace in surrendering, the feeling of relief that washed over you as you surrendered yourself to the fact that there really was nothing you could do in some situations, and that no matter how hard you tried or how much you wanted it, there was really no way you could change it. Maybe, by making yourself weak, it made you strong, made you able to finally stand up and face whatever was coming at you with some sort of calm acceptance, after laying down all your sorrows and fears.

He doesn't know, but he does know that no matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to make himself move away from the sign in either direction.

A pair of footsteps echoes down the hallway, and Declan feels the solid presence of someone standing inches away from him.

"Never took Declan Coyne for a praying man," Holly J remarks, staring at the sign.

He shrugs. "Hey," he says, "a man can change."

Holly J doesn't respond. Keeping his face pointed at the sign, he glances at her out of the corner of his eye. This is the closest they have been since the day he left, almost four months ago, and the most words they have exchanged since the door shut behind her as she strode out of Fiona's condo that cold afternoon.

"I didn't know you know Adam," he says, apropos of nothing.

She shrugs without looking at him. "I don't, really," she says. "I came for Fiona."

"Me, too," he agrees.

Silence. What else could they possibly say? Certainly nothing that he wants to address here. He's not even sure he could begin to find the words, anyway.

"He makes her so happy," Holly J says suddenly, and this time, they look at each other, eyes locking. "She's been so happy; happier than I've ever seen her." She bows her head. "I wish I had gotten to know why."

He gazes at her, trying to figure out what to say. He wishes the same thing- that he had gotten to spend more time with his sister's boyfriend, to figure out exactly what it was about their peculiar connection that had seemed to bring so much peace to his sister for the first time in years. But he doesn't know what to say that wouldn't sound like a trite platitude straight out of a greeting card, so he just clears his throat and swallows the realization that he may never know.

He's suddenly aware of the movement of his hand, reaching upward towards her as if it has a mind of its own. It makes a motion as if to touch her cheek, but right before skin meets skin he jerks it away.

The suddenness of his motion makes Holly J turn to look at him. Her gaze isn't surprised or angry, but instead just sad.

"Declan," she whispers, pleading. "Please don't. Not here. Not tonight."

He nods, pocketing the traitorous hand in his pants pocket.

"Oh."

A small noise startles the both of them out of the moment as both of their heads turn. Clare Edwards stands in the hallway before them, her face white and eyes downcast.

"Sorry," she mumbles, and Declan finds it funny that she's embarrassed at a time like this. "I…I'll go."

"No," Holly J interrupts. "It's okay. I was just leaving." Without turning to look back at Declan, she strides down the hallway, leaving him and Clare in front of the sign.

"I didn't know you were a Christian," Clare says softly after a moment.

"Neither did I," he says. At her look, he sighs. "I'm not."

He shuffles uncertainly. "I don't know what I'm doing here," he admits, surprising the both of them.

His eyes trail to the cross around her neck. "Are you gonna go in?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you gonna go in?" he repeats. "The chapel. You gonna…go pray?"

He realizes as soon as he says the words that it didn't come out quite right- it sounds like he's mocking her. "Sorry," he says quickly. "I didn't mean it like that."

Another silence falls. Clare has always known the expression that silence is deafening, but she's never really understood it until now. The air between them is so thick she feels like she's swimming through it, loaded down with all the words she can't dislodge from the back of her throat.

"I don't know, either," she confesses suddenly.

"Don't know what?"

Her eyes are still fixed on the sign, but she can tell that Declan is watching her, a worried look on his face. Clare crosses her arms over her chest. "What I'm doing here."

"I went to a Buddhist temple once," he says, trying to close the silence between them. "When we lived in Tibet. Went with the Dalai Lama. I thought they had the right idea about religion. Believing that at the end of it all, everything is nothing. There's something to be said about that."

"Isn't it that nothing is everything?" Clare asks.

He shrugs. "Isn't that the same thing?"

Clare works over his words in her mind. That kind of philosophy could have helped her out in the middle of her divorce. Could have helped Eli out, too, if he was the type to go for any type of religion.

_We hold onto so much,_ she thinks. _What good does it do to any of us? We bottle up our pain like it means something, then offer it up as penance for the things we've done wrong. Absurd. Like our suffering means anything. _

She thinks of Eli, still jumping at Death's shadow. Darcy, all the way in Africa, trying to outrun her supposed sins and face them head-on at the same time. Can either of them, Clare wonders, really say that they are any better off for their suffering; that after everything they've been through, they have finally found some sort of reason for everything? Is there really something to be said for discovering reason in the wake of tragedy? Or, like everything Eli believes, is it all really just a bunch of bullshit, a Band-Aid that can never be big enough to cover a gaping wound?

"I forgot to pray," she whispers, out of nowhere. Her eyes widen and she throws a furtive glance at Declan, feeling the exact same flood of embarrassment, disbelief, and shame that she had felt when she kissed his neck a year ago.

Declan, too, has the same look of confusion he had back then. "What?"

"I forgot to pray." She sniffs, blinking back tears. Her eyes trail off down the corridor.

"When I first…when Sav got the call from Principle Simpson, and he told me and Alli, it was…I don't know what it was. Horrible. The most terrifying experience of my life. Something that I'll never be able to forget, as long as I live. And now…"

"I don't even know what to say, or do, or anything. It's like my mind's spinning, trying to grab onto something. I have no idea what to do. And I've always known, my whole life- I've always somehow known what the right thing to do was. But when Sav told me what had happened, I thought- 'I don't know anything at all'. So when we first got the call, I forgot to pray. I didn't even think about praying at all. Not once. And I don't know why."

She doesn't realize she's crying when she turns back to face Declan. "So why isn't Adam enough for me to stop spinning and pray?"

Once again, Declan finds himself running into another brick wall in the maze that is this night. He has no idea what he could possibly say to Clare that would make this any better, and he hates realizing that there _is_ nothing he can do.

"You're here now," is all he can offer. "And God got Adam this far."

Clare wipes her eyes on the back of her hand, and seems to seriously consider this.

**Author's Note: I have to be honest- I can't wholly take credit for writing this chapter. The line about Buddhism and everything being nothing comes from an episode of Six Feet Under. That little exchange of words inspired this whole chapter. I couldn't NOT use it. So hopefully Alan Ball won't sue me for using it, cause I'm poor. **

**Also, to the reviewer who pointed out my reference to Toy Story in the previous chapter…bonus points.**


	15. Chapter 15

Zane doesn't know how seriously to take Eli's words about death, whether to believe that it was a suicidal threat or simply just trying to express how much he's hurting, but he does know that there's no way in hell he's going to just leave the kid alone after that. So when Eli finally stops making that terrible noise, Zane gently removes the boy from his lap and stands up, helping him to his feet.

Eli doesn't protest, doesn't make a sound as he accepts Zane's arms hoisting him into a standing position. He stands there, swaying like someone who's a bit tipsy, but otherwise fairly steady.

As he stands there, Zane watches his face closely. Eli's eyes are completely dry, and except for a slight tremor of his shoulders, he's stable. But the look in his eyes is deep and empty, like there's only a shell standing before Zane, and the real Eli Goldsworthy has retreated somewhere far back into his own mind, lost where Zane can't see him.

Zane takes the boy by the arm and tugs him out of the sanctuary, blinking as the bright light momentarily blinds him. With no destination in mind but determination to do _something, anything_ to shake away this feeling of helplessness, he power-walks the two of them through the hospital, though the more twists and turns they take through the intestinal hallways, the more his mind stays resolutely blank.

Eventually, their erratic pace is stopped altogether by a hallway that ends in a door with no handles, just a box for an electronic passkey on the side and a sign on the front that reads, **AUTHORIZED PERSONELL ONLY. ADMITTANCE PASSKEY ACCESSIBLE. **

His heart sinking, Zane puts his hand against the door, as if willing it to open under his touch. But it still stays determinedly, mockingly shut.

_No revelation here, buddy. No light at the end of the tunnel. You're on your own._

Zane sighs, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now. Go back to the waiting room? Go back to the sanctuary?

He glances over his shoulder at Eli, staring at the ground without seeing, and that fierce determination to do _something_ comes bubbling back up.

He had been right before, what he said to Riley. Nothing that he- or any of them- did in that waiting room was going to make Adam any less hurt, or ensure that he would survive this night. Nothing was going to assuage his family's anguish. But this, right here, is something that he might be able to fix- or if not fix, than at least make somewhat less broken than it is now. He isn't sure whether he's doing this to pull Eli back from whatever ledge he's dangling off of, or to just make himself feel better about being so helpless and useless, but without wanting to think about it anymore, he grabs Eli's arm again and pulls him down the hallway. "Come on," he says, as much to himself as Eli, urging them both on.

Zane passes a sign on the hallway, peering at it as if it could give him some sort of guidance. GYNECOLOGY, 3RD FLOOR. MATERNITY CENTER, 4TH FLOOR. OPERATING ROOM, GROUND LEVEL.

Then- STARBUCKS, 3RD FLOOR ANNEX.

Zane blinks, suddenly aware for the first time that night that he hasn't had anything to eat since coming to the hospital…he's forgotten how many hours ago it was. All he's done is sip a few cups of terrible hospital roast and chew gum, and now his stomach is churning with hunger. Tugging Eli behind him, he pulls the boy into the elevator and presses the button to the third floor.

The Starbucks isn't really much of a Starbucks, really just a flimsy-looking stand, resembling more a street vendor selling hot dogs than an actual coffee shop. Nonetheless, there's chairs and tables, most of them unoccupied except for a tired and mussed doctor in scrubs sipping coffee and looking dazed. Nobody they know, no one to ask questions or even care that they're there. He guides Eli to a table and then heads to the counter, glancing worriedly over his shoulder. Eli doesn't so much as flick an eyelash, just sits there, hunched over in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest with a blank look on his face.

_Catatonic. _The word pops into Zane's mind like a whip cracking, and he almost jumps at the thought. He wonders again if Goldsworthy has suffered some kind of mental breakdown, if he really does need more help than Zane can offer with a sandwich and some company. Still, he stands at the counter and orders a grilled cheese for Eli and a croissant for himself, bringing his meager Band-Aid back to the table.

At first, Eli doesn't eat, just stares at his food while Zane methodically tears his into sections, breaking piece by piece until he puts a wafer-sized, buttery portion into his mouth, chewing with agonizing slowness.

It isn't until he's eaten nearly half of his croissant that Eli finally speaks.

"I'm sorry."

He doesn't look at Zane, instead fixating on his cold, untouched sandwich, leaking grease on the paper plate in front of him.

"Why?" Zane asks, puzzled.

Eli shrugs. "I'm sorry for earlier," he says, not an answer.

Zane puts down his croissant and leans over the table, closing the distance between them . "Eli," he says, "I don't know what you're sorry for."

Eli just shakes his head, refusing eye contact. "Shit," he mutters, staring off into the distance, still shaking his head.

Zane just waits, confused. He watches Eli's head nod imperceptibly, rolling words over in his mind.

"I'm just so tired," he says, speaking with a halting tone, measuring every word. "I can't do this anymore. I can't. And what's worse, I have no right to complain." He looks at Zane. "My best friend is dying, and all I can do is say that I wish I were dead, too."

Zane has no idea what to say to that. He takes a moment to think, but then Eli locks eyes with him.

"My girlfriend died last year," he tells him. "She was hit by a car after we got into a big fight." He pauses. "I thought I was going to die when she did. I honestly believed that it would kill me. But it didn't. And now…"

His voice breaks off for a moment, then he finishes, "I can't live through it again. I just can't. I can't go through every day feeling like this, knowing every minute of every day is going to be this bad. I just can't. I didn't even survive it the first time; not really. But I know I won't survive it a second time. And I feel like shit, too, because I feel like I'm giving up on Adam and just sinking so fast I don't know how to stop it. It's just pressing me down until it kills me."

Zane sits back in his seat. "Like Atlas," he says under his breath.

Eli doesn't reply. Looking like it's taking him all the effort in the world, he reaches for his now-cold sandwich and puts a torn-off edge in his mouth. His eyes trail to something over Zane's head, and Zane turns, surprised to see an exhausted-looking redhead trail into Starbucks, her face wan and clothes rumpled like she slept in them. Holly J Sinclair has never looked so defeated as she does in that moment, and Zane almost does not recognize her.

When he does, he raises his hand, an awkward gesture of hello and recognition, and to his surprise, Holly J makes her way over to them, a banana and Diet Coke in hand, taking up a seat between the two boys. "Look who it is," she says humorlessly.

Zane watches her take a swig of her soda. "Any word?"

She shakes her head. "Same old," she replies. "Head trauma, internal injuries, OR till further notice, we'll let you know as soon as we do." She shakes her head in disgust. "You think that by now, they would have changed the script. I mean, it's been, what, like, six or seven hours? You would think they had _some_ news either way." She pauses. "I mean…not to sound harsh."

"It's alright," Zane tells her. "We all get it."

Holly J gives him a grateful look, then her eyes slide to Eli. "What happened to your hand?" she asks suddenly.

Zane glances over at the junior, and now sees what in the darkness of the sanctuary he did not see before- Eli's left hand, horrendously swollen and misshapen, like someone took a hammer to it with gleeful abandon. His fingers are bloated and crooked, sticking out at freakish angles, and the whole thing is a dark purple color, except for some parts that are black. It looks, he realizes, like the hand of a dead body , like something they would find on a corpse fished out of a river.

Eli looks down at it, unfazed, and just shakes his head.

"You should get that looked at," Holly J urges. "That looks pretty terrible."

"So I've been told," he says dryly.

"Well, at least let me wrap it for you," she says, unfurling the scarf from around her neck. "Put it in a sling. Something. You can't just leave that uncared for."

"It's not really on my list of priorities right now," he snaps.

Holly J raises her eyebrows, and Zane watches her morph from the weary stranger into the student council VP that he knows, confident and no-nonsense.

"If you won't take care of yourself, let someone else at least try," she says briskly. Without a squeak of protest, she wraps his hand in the red scarf that had been loosely hanging around her neck, tying it around his wrist.

Eli accepts the makeshift cast passively. "Thanks," he says after a moment.

Holly J grins. "You've finally met your match in the stubborn category," she tells him. "You'll never win against a Sinclair. No hope there."

Very slowly, Eli's lips curve into a smirk, as if he isn't sure how to do it at first and is relying on very rusty muscle memory.

"A rhyming scheme and everything," he says finally. "Cute. Tell me, did you come up with that one yourself? Or did your political committee do it for you? Great for your next campaign. A real winner, there."

Holly J rolls her eyes, and Zane grins, his mouth pulled into a full Cheshire grin that he can't seem to hold back or disguise. The three of them shooting millisecond sideways glances at each other, not trusting to make eye contact.

Then, all of a sudden, a giggle escapes Holly J, like steam whistling out of a kettle. Her eyes widen at the unwarranted, almost illicit sound in disbelief that it came from her own throat. She clamps down furiously, desperately trying to squelch it as blush spreads like a virus up and down her skin all the way to the roots of her hair.

Zane's face is, if possible, redder than Holly J's. A choked chortle escapes him before he breaks completely, shattering like Plexiglas as he buries his head into his arms on the table, trembling with laughter. By now, Holly J's eyes are streaming, and she's pressed her forehead against the table as she tremors under the weight of her own giggles.

It seems blasphemous, like spitting on a dead body, but they can't help it- it just keeps coming. It's the first time either of them have laughed at all since this godforsaken night began, and now a levee has broken somewhere, releasing all the built-up tension inside of the two of them as their shoulders shake with giggles they're helpless to control or stop. Whenever it dies down, all it takes is for one of them to make eye contact with the other and another wave of laughter comes over them again. It's like being trapped in a set of enormous waves that come crashing down on you so hard that you forget which way is up. They come frantically, one right after the other after the other, without enough of a break in between to find the surface so you can come up to breathe.

Eli doesn't start laughing like they do, but instead sits back in his chair, watching them with an expression wavering between disbelief and amusement. His own face is upturned into what looks to be his old signature grin, watching the two of them lose what tenuous grasp they have on their emotions finally snap under stress and exhaustion.

People are whispering, pointing, and flat-out staring as they watch them, but they could care less- probably because they're completely oblivious to it. They're cackling like hyenas, uncontrollable, uncontainable, unstoppable. All the effort it took to bottle up their emotions is finally being released. They don't want to stop; they've held it back for too long.

**Author's Note: Needed some light-heartedness (or something LIKE lightheartedness, anyway; there isn't much of that in this fic) after these last couple chapters. Stress and grief make people do crazy things (hoarding, anyone?) and you gotta let it out somehow. These two have been trying to hold it together all night and be strong, and now it's finally just snapped them in half with all the exhausting effort.**

**PS- I wanted to thank you guys again for all the amazing reviews. You really have no idea what it means to me to come home from a crummy day at work, tired and frustrated, and see all these comments you guys take the time to leave. To anyone who has done so, I want to thank you. You're the best. **


	16. Chapter 16

Funny, how all the years she knelt down to pray, she never hesitated. She always knew exactly what to say and never had to think twice about it.

Ironic, how the one time in her life when she needs her prayer to mean more than anything else ever has before, she can't make the words come. Like a Holy Writer's Block or something.

More like Saint Clare, having a crisis of faith.

(Especially funny that it would come now, at a time when prayer should usually come as a normal response- faced with something too devastating to comprehend, one normally turned to a Higher Power to do so.)

Now here she is, kneeling in front of the altar. Turning to God as she had countless times in her childhood, when she felt prayer to be a soothing peace washing over her, certain that it would make things right when everything around her was all manner of wrong.

Except this time, her mind is completely blank instead of filled. And instead of a sense of peace, all Clare feels right now is total desperation.

_Lord, I'm so sorry. It's been awhile since I tuned in to what You had to say. I know that You already know this- being God and everything- but I know that You've seen me struggle with my belief in You these past few months. I know that You're all-knowing, but I hope you understand how hard it's been to keep believing, with everything that's been going on around me._

_I know that I haven't spoken to You in some time. But that doesn't mean that I don't still believe. I just want You to know that now, this means more to me than anything else in the world ever has. Please, Lord, if You're even real, if You really are all-powerful and all-merciful and all-forgiving, please, forgive whatever transgressions and moments of skepticism I might have had these past few months, and please, just please- here me out._

_I'm begging you, with everything that I have in me. Please, God, spare Adam. Please. I beg of you. I'm down here on my knees, and all I can do is beg. Please, God, let him live. Let him survive this and be okay. Let him come home to his family, to me, to Eli. To everyone. _

_Everyone in that waiting room, they all think that it's hopeless. Everyone in there is only there out of a sense of obligation, to see this through till the end. _

_But please, God, don't let it be his end._

_He's so young. He's one of the most wonderful people I've ever met, and now everything he is rests with You. Please, God, please. Please. _

_Please._

Clare lifts her head up and stares at the altar, taking in the carved face of Jesus on the cross before her. She looks at the smooth wood as if it would yield some kind of answer, but instead just sees the carved anguish, the face frozen in torturous pain, the cry to the Heavens: "why have you forsaken me?"

_Has God forsaken Adam? Is that why this is happening?_

Clare knows that Jesus is supposed to be all-loving. But she has also been raised to believe that there is a certain way that people are supposed to live their lives, and any other way is a sin.

Not that she believes any of that (not anymore, anyway). She knows the world isn't nearly as black and white as her parents and her church had led her to believe.

But still, she had been told countless times that homosexuality is wrong. And while Adam isn't gay, what he _is _doesn't exactly earn a stamp of approval from the church, either.

So what did that make him? Damned? Forsaken? Forgotten? Disowned by a Being whose eternal grace, mercy, and forgiveness is supposed to extend to all of humankind, no matter what kind of person they are?

"Why would I believe in any type of God that would do this to me, and then tell me that I'm wrong for being who I am?" Adam had once told her. He doesn't believe in God, and he tries to respect her beliefs the best that he can, but it isn't always easy for him. "The world tells you that you have to be one way, and that there's one way to live. But why would He put me in this body and tell me that I'm supposed to be this way when I know I'm not? I know who I am. Why would I believe in some God who says that's wrong and would put me through so much because of it?"

Is God even listening right now? Is he seriously considering her prayers, turning them over in his hands, along with Adam's fate? Or did he write them off and refuse to listen, because Adam didn't believe, and because He thought Adam was wrong for being Adam?

_Isn't Jesus supposed to be all-forgiving? _

It's not so much a question as much as it is begging for that to be the answer.

Another voice sounding alarmingly like Eli, cold and cynical, replies: _Not to everyone. _

_Why should Adam have to be forgiven of anything, anyway? He is who he is. Why is that wrong? You made him, God. Isn't that supposed to be enough for You to love him no matter what?_

_Please, Lord._

_He's too young to die. He's too good to die. _

_Especially like this._

_Please._

_Please._

_Please, please, please._

Saint Clare- Christian, author, gifted wordsmith- has no other words before the Almighty but the one.

_Please._


	17. Chapter 17

**I.**

"Thanks for the sandwich. I was starving."

"It's alright. You want another one?"

"No. I'm okay for now."

A cocked eyebrow and a knowing smile. "Really?"

The shake of a head. "No. But better than I was." A pause. "Thank you for that."

"It's not a big deal. Don't worry."

"Well, it is a big deal to me. I don't know too many guys who would have done that."

"Not a problem."

**II.**

"They didn't have any Sprites. All I could find was Mountain Dew."

"It's fine."

The twist of a bottlecap, then the _pffttt _of carbonation and the swig of a cold drink.

**III.**

"What time is it?"

"Almost four-thirty."

**IV.**

Has she ever been at this hospital this long waiting for her mother?

No.

And she hopes to God she never has to be.

She catches herself on that statement and snorts.

_God._

Right.

**V.**

Steps down the hall. Brisk, purposeful, alert.

He knows where he's going, even though it might be the last place on earth he actually wants to be.

But it doesn't matter what he wants anymore, because this is where he needs to be. It's where he's always needed to be from the start.

_Oh, Adam. Please forgive me for this. Please forgive me for losing hope. _

_You never give up on me. Not once. And I promise, I never will for you._

_Please, buddy. _

_Hang in there._

…

_(I love you)_

…

_(Yes, Machisimo, I'm being a sappy jerk. Don't you dare mock me.)_

**VI.**

Zane makes a beeline for the seat in between Riley and Anya. Riley looks comatose in his chair, slumped down with his chin resting on his chest, while Anya is hunched over, her coat in her lap, her eyes dull and vacant.

"Do you need a ride home anytime soon?" he suddenly asks her.

Anya blinks at him, taking a moment to register his words. "Oh," she says. "Umm, I don't think so. My parents haven't called or anything. I told them that I didn't know how long we'd be here."

"Will they be mad that you're out all night? I can take you home, if you need to."

She shakes her head. "It's alright."

He nods, falling back into his chair, the back of the seat digging into his neck as he does.

"Not like there's much of a point in leaving now, anyway," Anya adds.

Zane shrugs. "Yeah, but not much of a point in staying, either."

They meet each other's eyes. Their paralysis in limbo remains.

**VII.**

Mechanical steps. Eyes unseeing, mind blank. Senses dull as a rusted penny.

Nothing left to think about. Nothing left to say or do.

Just…nothing.

_Bump._

A sharp pain radiates through Clare's skull, making her step back and put a hand to her forehead. The person she collided with does the same.

Slowly, they meet each other's eyes.

It takes a moment to recognize one another. Sorrow and fatigue have worn them down and rung them out. But once they do, it's with the realization that for the first time since they arrived, they've found something that feels right. This is where they were supposed to have been from the very beginning.

"Your hand..."

**VIII.**

Almost five AM now, and everyone is still in the waiting room.

The Bhandaris are, surprisingly, still around. Unable to stay but unwilling to leave, they have temporarily thrown caution to the wind.

To hell with what their parents want. For once, that isn't going to be the deciding factor in their choices. Besides, this is so much more than just asking permission to go to a party or stay out an extra hour past curfew.

Fiona isn't crying anymore- actually, she hasn't made much of any kind of sound in the past few hours. She just sits beside her brother, her face resembling a smudged wax sculpture, her normal expression smeared into something that makes her totally unrecognizable. Beside her, Declan's head leans back and his eyes are closed, tapping his foot against the floor listlessly in an effort to keep himself awake.

Eli sits in his chair, his hand still wrapped in Holly J's red scarf and Clare's head resting on his shoulder. Her arms are around his neck, and she shifts her position gently in his lap, her legs dangling over his. Absentmindedly, she strokes the back of his head, his good hand intertwining with her free one.

Nobody speaks, nobody gets up, nobody fidgets. They just all sit there in against the wall, stiff as statues.

Ten little altars, erected in the aftermath of tragedy.

**IX.**

Footsteps down the hallway. Door swinging open.

Doctor coming.

**Author's Note: Yes, Eclare finally reunites. So now you all can quit asking me about when it's going to happen. HA. =)**


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has stuck with the story this long and has stayed with the plot. I know it's been a slow go, but I really wanted to build it up to this moment. So thanks to everyone who didn't give up on this story, or me. It means a lot that you take the time to read and review. **

**I.**

_Here we go, _Riley thinks.

A doctor steps out from behind the double doors barricading them from going any farther and summons the Torres family to him. Mechanically, they all shuffle forward, as every eye in the room turns to them.

They could all tell. Nothing good. Just like they've all known for hours, but now the reality hits them all as they see the truth hit home.

Adam's mother turns stark white. She covers her hand with her mouth, her face scrunching up as she breathes rapidly, choking on what the doctor has told her. Her husband's arms come around her, and her head falls onto his shoulder as her shoulders quake with sobs. All air of authority and sternness that the woman normally possesses evaporates. Just like that, Dragon Lady of the School Board turns into another grief-stricken relative, one of the billions of faceless people the hospital see daily and deliver the unthinkable to.

Drew's face tightens, his eyes shutting, his hands on his hips. He's absolutely still, his face blank, but Riley thinks he's aged about ten years in a single moment. He's briefly reminded of those photographs in his history book of liberated Auschwitz survivors- the haunted, ghostly look in their eyes, as if they were already dead walking around. Skeletons, over a hundred years old and still walking, moving and shuffling with the grace and deftness of a zombie. Their sunken eye sockets and the expressionless faces. Bodies going on after their souls had long since died and rotted away. How long did those people hang on for, if they did hang on at all? You couldn't live very long without a heart.

The group's eyes begin to shift as they glance around their half-circle at one another. No matter how they came here tonight- friends, enemies, lovers, exes, strangers- they are all suddenly equalized, like a building tumbling to meet the earth. All of them have, overnight, become unified in their grief, horrified and in pain. The tears flow unabashedly from some, while others just stand there in a daze, lost and confused.

Fiona crumbles against her brother as Clare and Eli melt into one another, fusing together like a bronze statue. Holly J bites back a sob that she chokes into the sleeve of Sav's jacket. Even Alli cries, tears flowing freely as her brother pulls her close to him.

Anya buries her face into Riley's shoulder. His arms go around her mechanically. Over the crown of her head, his eyes meet Zane's. Both of them are in tears, but they can't let them fall, not just yet. Later, perhaps, they'll fall apart. Maybe with each other, holding onto one another as they cry, leaning on one another like you're supposed to depend on your significant other to do in a time like this. Or maybe they'll just do it privately, when nobody else is around to witness their displays of heartache. But for now they just stand there and absorb the shock slowly, letting it sink into them bit by bit like cobra fangs, releasing the poison that will spread through their bodies in time.

The doctor puts an arm onto Mr. Torres, shaking his head sadly. Then he glances over at the students congregated nearby, and heads over to them, his face grave and fatigued.

**II.**

"He's…not dead."

**III.**

Nobody feels it at first. People keep sobbing, staring, shaking. Nobody truly registers the words the doctor has just said, until Riley gives him a confused look and asks, "What?"

"He's not dead," the doctor repeats.

This time, everyone hears it. They lift their faces to the doctor. Nobody looks happy or relieved- just shocked into disbelief. They've spent all night waiting to hear the worst that hearing anything else is just as momentarily unacceptable as what they originally believed.

He didn't get off scot-free, the doctor informs them. In fact, he's _still_ not scot-free. At the moment, Adam is in the pediatric ICU, listed in critical condition. Still very much touch-and-go. Right now, things could go either way. The same words that they've been hearing all night weave back into the monologue: _severe head trauma, internal injuries, comatose._

In other words, things aren't just all good.

But, the doctor points out, Adam managed to make it through surgery. And the fact that he was able to survive that exhausting ordeal means that the kid has some strength to him. He's already beaten the odds this far. He's lasted the night, which nobody expected him to do in the first place, and now, things are back to being up in the air, instead of filled with a dreadful, sickening certainty.

Clare is the first to finally speak.

"Can we see him?" she whispers, her voice hoarse and deep.

The doctor shakes his head. "Not for awhile, I'm afraid."

_Afraid of what?_ Riley wants to say, but is too tired to form the words on his tongue. Instead, he just keeps his arms around Anya, who is still sobbing tiredly.

**IV.**

That is that. In that moment, their endless night is finally over. The wait has passed. They are released from this alternate reality, finally able to step back into a world that was exactly the same as they had left it a few hours ago.

As if to prove their point, the sunshine begins peeking in through the windows of the hospital entry doors, the very beginnings of dawn beginning to spill onto the blank night canvas. Pretty soon, the world would wake up again, and all the cogs and bells and whistles required to motion it through another day would begin to turn in full-force.

After the doctor had left them, Mr. Torres came over to address the students- something that neither he nor his wife had done for the entirety of their vigil. He thanked them all for staying, and he emphasized how much it had meant to his family for them to see this night through with them. But they really needed some privacy right now, and out of respect for the family, could they please give them some space.

Mutely they had all nodded, still too numb to put up any kind of fight. Even Eli shuffled out the door docilely, his face sagging and his eyes empty as he clung to Clare's hand, the tightness in his grip the only sign of life he showed.

Stepping out into the sunshine for the first time in hours, all of them blinked and shielded their eyes as the bright light hit them like a hangover.

"Geez," Declan mutters, "whose the genius that made the morning so damn bright?"

A few of them snicker, and they all take a moment to glance around and look at each other, uncertain about what to do next.

Zane finally speaks. "Does anyone need a ride home?" he asks.

Anya raises her hand.

"I think I'm gonna call a cab," says Declan. "I'm not sure I'm up for driving right now."

"Is anyone hungry?" Riley asks. "I think I'm gonna go get something to eat. No point in trying to sleep, anyway. Gotta be at school soon."

_School._

The most mundane, ordinary activity in their lives. Are they really going to just go back and blend seamlessly into their respective cliques in the student body, going back to ignoring the night's broken boundaries and acting like the whole night had never happened?

In some ways, yes, they realize. It's another day, and unbelievably, time keeps moving.

"I could go for some real food," Holly J pipes up. "Like you said, no point in sleeping now."

Riley agrees. "Anyone else on board?"

Anya and Zane look at each other, then shrug. "I guess I could go for something to eat," he offers.

"Yeah," Anya adds. "It's not like I'm not gonna just turn back around and go right to school when I get home, anyway."

"You guys want to come?" Riley calls to Declan and Sav.

"No, man," Sav replies. "I'm gonna go home." He looks at Holly J. "We've got that assembly in, like, what, two hours?"

"Yeah," Holly J answers. "I guess any prep at this point is pretty much a lost cause, now, right?"

"Right," he says. "I guess we're just gonna take this one off the cuff, huh?"

"Looks like."

"What about you guys?" Riley asks the Coynes.

Fiona just sighs.

"No thanks," Declan answers for the both of them. "I think we're just gonna head home and crash."

Riley nods. He glances around, searching for Eli and Clare, but in all the conversation, the two of them have managed to slip away unnoticed, leaving no trace of which direction they might have gone to behind.

They bid their goodbyes to the Coynes as they leave them outside the hospital, waiting for a cab to take them home, and then they head down the street in search of a place to eat. They eventually stumble across a faceless chain restaurant about a block from the hospital and all pull in, ordering off the breakfast menu. They gather their food and eat in silence, the only sounds they make the chews and grunts and slurps of devouring their meals.

It strikes them all, as they finish off their food, how out-of-place the whole thing is, and at the same time, ironically, how ordinary. They are starting off this day as they would any other day- getting a meal. Before they know it, they'll be off to school. Later on they'll have homework, and then dinner, and then bed. Then before they know it, they'll wake up and repeat the whole thing over again.

The world keeps going on. Even if you think you've jumped off it somehow, there is always a shift back to routine.

**Author's Note: So…there we go. After all this build-up, finally some news. I wasn't sure how this would go over. It's actually turned out a little better than I thought it would, considering how long it took me to write, but that's what REVIEWS are for. Feedback= always a blessing. **


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Note: Sorry I took so long with the updates. It's been really busy at work lately with the holiday season coming up, and now that Black Friday is just around the corner *shudders* things are gonna get REALLY hectic. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of working in retail before, to do so, especially during the holiday season, is to develop a slow-burning hatred of the entire human race. So right now I'm trying to conserve all the patience I can get and try my hardest not to pull a Holly J (or a Rick Murray, lol) on any customers. "Service with a smile!" (gag)**

**Anyway, enough of my rambling. As always, thank you for sticking with the story for this long, and please, don't forget to REVIEW.**

**5:14 AM**

When the cab pulls in front of Fiona's condo, Declan takes his sister by the elbow and helps her inside. They both kick off their shoes and without a word, Fiona heads to the fridge and pulls out a bottle.

"Please, don't tell me you're going to go all alkie on me now, sis," Declan says. "I know it's been a rough night, but come on."

Fiona gives him an icy glare. "It's seltzer water," she says coolly. "It settles my stomach. Anti-anxiety meds Dr. Sandler prescribed make me nauseous enough without major catastrophes making it turn cartwheels."

Unconvinced, he steps closer to Fiona and snatches the bottle out of her hand, taking a deep whiff. There's the spicy snap of carbonation, but no hint of the fermented, yeasty smell of alcohol. He hands the bottle back to his sister, who is still glaring at him.

Declan sighs and runs his fingers through his hair, leaning against the fridge. "You got anything to eat?"

"Not really. Haven't had time to go grocery shopping." She takes another sip of her water. "You wanna…order in or something?"

The two siblings meet each other's eyes, each thinking the same thing. Only a year ago, ordering take-out and sharing meals just between the two of them was a common, if not everyday, occurrence. But ever since this past summer- not to mention Holly J, Bobby, Vanderbilt, and Adam- they can't really remember the last time they sat down and ordered dine-in, just the two of them, like it always used to be.

Declan feels a pang in his stomach, the same way he did the night Fiona got plastered at his post-Grundy's party. They really have grown so far apart.

In some ways, it's good. This summer made Declan realize how badly his sister needed to be on her own and develop her own life. But at the same time, she's his sister. He loves her more than he could ever explain. At the end of the day, she's his twin, and she's the one who understands him best. As haphazard and difficult as she can be, she's the one person who means the most to him.

That makes him think of Adam's brother, which makes his stomach turn. Oh, God, what he must be feeling right now.

"Do you have anything in mind?" he asks.

Fiona shrugs. "Whatever you want," she says, then puts her palm to her forehead. "I'm gonna go lay down. Try and sleep."

Declan nods. When Fiona walks past him, he puts a hand on her shoulder. She pauses for a moment, and for what feels like the first time in months, the two of them really look at each other, the black circles under their eyes and their rumpled clothes and hair unbrushed and unwashed, greasy and lank.

As if there is a mirror placed in front of him, Declan can see the exhaustion, pain, and sadness that he is feeling reflected back at him in Fiona's face. He can feel it, too- the anguish, the fear, the confusion- making his body ache down somewhere deep in his bones, throbbing through him like a pulse. He and his sister hold each other's gazes for what seemed like an eternity, unable to break the connection.

This had happened other times, when they had been children. Fiona would fall down and skin her knee, screaming bloody murder, and before their mother could run and pick her up Declan would let out a cry of his own, a mottled bruise already forming on his own knee. Or Declan would fall off the jungle gym, and when he landed on the ground, Fiona would let out a scream across the playground that seemed to echo the jolt he felt through his own body, giving a voice to his pain. Fiona would get hurt and Declan would flinch as if he were the one who had taken the blow; Declan would scrape himself up and Fiona would burst into tears. Their mother had joked about it often when they were older, saying that it was their way of being sympathetic of one another- neither one of them liked to see the other one get hurt, so when one of them did, the other one would act hurt out of sympathy. It had stopped sometime around the time Declan and Fiona were in the double digits, and their mother had always assumed they had outgrown it.

They hadn't.

Looking at his sister right now, Declan feels that same empathetic wave wash over him as he did back then. In this moment, he sees through Fiona perfectly, knowing exactly what she is feeling and knowing she can do the same for him. They are, for the first time in a long time, completely in sync with each other, the way they were as small children, absorbing the pain of one into two bodies. It's a strange feeling, like being naked in front of a mirror and staring at your own body, having every hidden curve and divot in your flesh exposed, unveiled, unable to be tucked away and ignored.

When they finally break gazes, Fiona shuffles silently into her bedroom, letting the door swing shut behind her. Declan collapses on the couch, running his hands over his face and sighing deeply, wanting nothing more than to sink into the impossibly soft micro suede of his sister's couch and sink into the black unknowing oblivion of deep sleep. He lies there for a moment and closes his eyes, then gets up and heads back to Fiona's bedroom.

He creaks open the door slowly, a tiny fragment of light spilling from the hallway into the dark room. He can't really see Fiona in the bed- she's more of a shapeless mound under a mountain of quilts, buried under an avalanche of blankets and a large black duvet cover that rises and falls with each breath like the belly of some great, cave-dwelling beast. She doesn't stir the slightest as he slips inside her room, not even taking notice of the invasion of her cavernous hole.

Declan kicks off his shoes and shrugs out of his coat, heading to the edge of the bed. He peels back the coverlets gently and climbs in bed beside Fiona and wraps his arms around his sister, both of their heads resting on the same white pillowcase.

Fiona doesn't say anything or make any noise, but she moves closer to him and buries her face in his collarbone, as if she's trying to climb inside Declan's skin. It reminds him of when they were little and would sleep in the same bed, the reassurance of their proximity enough to scare away any potential thoughts of monsters lurking in closets and scary, shadowy figures that liked to devour small, unsuspecting children in the darkness. Just the knowledge that someone else was there was enough to battle all those demons away, knowing that someone else was right there to protect you when you were scared, or even just hold your hand and be scared with you. Anything, as long as you weren't going through it alone.

Somewhere along the line, Declan knows that he let down that little girl that used to curl up next to him like an inchworm in his bed. He let the world get her, let it hurt her and tear her innocence apart. That little girl had never been struck, never been thrown down the stairs, never bruised. That girl knew nothing of hate.

When had he turned his back and betrayed that little girl?

_She's not a little girl anymore,_ he reminds himself. That little girl had grown up, as had he, and couldn't be protected and sheltered forever. That little girl needed to learn how to be a woman, and stand on her own two feet. That little girl needed her own life.

Still, he tightens his arms around Fiona, pressed against his chest, and closes his eyes into her hair. She may be trying to live her own life, but he's not entirely willing to let her go.

She's his, and he's hers, and when the world comes crashing down they're all they're going to have.

_Serve God, love me, and mend,_

_This is not the end._

_Lived unbruised, we are friends._

_And I'm sorry,_

_I'm sorry._

**Author's Note: So…the morning after.**

**I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the relationship between Declan and Fiona. It is so complicated and twisted and dysfunctional, but in the end very loving. I wish they had more scenes together- seriously, Landon and Annie are terrific together-and they made Degrassi Takes Manhattan for me, especially that scene where they argue that morning after the party. So I really wanted to explore how Declan would feel and all the conflicting emotions about the state of his and Fiona's relationship now. He's just seen Drew lose everything that he loves most in the world, and it's really driven home how he feels about his sister. **

**Anyway…thanks for reading, as always **

**Oh, and the song from the title finally comes into play here. It's called Sigh No More by the band Mumford and Sons. **


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Note: I probably should have said this in the previous chapter, but I don't own the lyrics to the song, they belong to Mumford & Sons. Thought I should throw that out there. **

**5:17 AM**

The bathtub is filled to the brim.

Clare sits on the lip of the tub, running the warm water over her palm lazily. A steamy haze begins to rise above the water as a mist forms above her head, fogging up the mirrors and curling her hair even more. She slumps against the wall and leans her head against the tile wall, closing her eyes and letting the cool surface calm the pounding in her forehead.

She and Eli finally returned home from the hospital not too long ago, bypassing his parents' bedroom and heading straight upstairs to Eli's. CeCe and Bullfrog's door had been open the barest creak and Clare had heard low voices from inside, indistinguishable sounds that were soon drowned out by her and Eli's footsteps up the stairs.

She's so tired she can barely see straight, and her eyes are itching from exhaustion, but she can't sleep until this jackhammer stops drilling through her forehead, so she took an Advil from the medicine cabinet and decided to take a warm bath to soothe herself while Eli changed and found some suitable sleep clothes for her.

Going to school never even crossed her mind at this point, or his. Neither had calling her parents, whom she had forgotten all about until Eli suddenly reminded her that she should probably let them know where she was before they called the cops looking for her.

She hadn't thought about it at the time, but Clare now realizes that her parents must have realized how serious things are if they hadn't put up any fight or questioned her the slightest when she told her father that she was staying at Eli's for the day and wouldn't be going to school.

Without knocking, Eli opens the door and suddenly looks away, embarrassed.

"Sorry," he mutters, averting his eyes.

She almost laughs at his awkwardness- she's still fully clothed, sitting on the edge of the tub. Still keeping one hand underneath the warm faucet, she reaches one hand out, beckoning for him to come closer. He sits on the lip of the tub next to her, still not looking at her. Her hand goes to his jaw line, gently following the lines of his face. Her hands brush his hair out of his eyes.

Under her touch, Eli goes completely still. His eyes flutter open as her hands trace his face like a constellation, mesmerizing him into total calm. Their gazes never wavering, she reaches up and pulls his t-shirt over his head, and then her slim fingers undo the belt buckle. Without letting herself think, she slides off his jeans, then his boxers.

His face is hot, and he sits there for a moment on the edge of the tub, staring at her inscrutable expression in wonder. Still not looking away from him, she unbuttons her shirt and unclasps her bra, then steps out of her underwear.

They slip into the bathtub. The water is too hot, but neither of them care or notice much. Eli sits with his knees bent and his arms wrapped around her, propped up against the corner of the tub. Clare curls up into him, leaning against his chest, her head resting on the shelf of his shoulder.

Neither of them are thinking, feeling, or doing anything, other than feeling every heartbeat. He's completely aware of how in-sync they are at the moment. He can feel himself breathe, feels Clare breathing against his chest, feels the in and out motion of her inhale and exhale synchronizing with his.

It's not the intense feeling of yesterday. Instead, it is just a blissful nothingness, letting the water rain down on them.

Steam rises from the water, filling the tiny space with a hazy film that he can barely see through. Against his body, Clare is glowing in the light of the fluorescent against the water lighting up her skin, a thousand tiny luminaries. She's glowing so brightly he can barely keep his eyes open, so he closes them, feeling feel Clare's slow, relaxed breath huffing against his damp skin; her slowed heartbeat, gentle and lulling.

Clare becomes the steam around him. She's not just solid and warm and real against him, but everywhere around him. She's the steam rising from the water, the haze in the air, the light radiating from the ceiling. She's surrounding him.

They lie there for who knows how long. His thoughts keep fading in and out of consciousness, and he is soothed by the warmth and the light and the comforting thud of her against him. Around him, the walls are swimming in a warm, wet, too-bright vapor, refusing to stop spinning and blurring. He can't tell if Clare's asleep now or not, but her head is lulling on his shoulder, her lips on his collarbone. His leg that is pinned underneath her is falling asleep, but he doesn't want to move, not wanting to disturb her.

Suddenly, Clare whispers to him. It's almost inaudible, so he's not entirely sure if it's just a puff of steam or the sound of the water rolling off of him, but either way, he hears it:

_I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you._

_Sigh no more, no more_

_One foot in sea, one on shore_

_My heart was never pure_

_And you know me_

_You know me_


	21. Chapter 21

**6:04 AM**

CeCe Goldsworthy tiptoes into her son's bedroom, peering at the two figures fast asleep in the bed, fully clothed and warmth radiating off their still forms as they lie tangled in the bed sheets. Bending over her son, she gently reaches a hand to stroke the fringe from out of his eyes. She plants a kiss on his forehead, watching his peaceful rest, his chest rising and falling and his hand intertwined in Clare's.

She glances over at Clare, too, the covers kicked down her legs, clad in a pair of Eli's sweatpants. She creeps to the other side of the bed and pulls the cover back over Clare's body, taking a moment to look at this girl, who in such a short time has given CeCe her son back. She has pulled him back from the lost place he was wandering around in, the darkness that had taken her baby boy and pushed him farther and farther away from her and her husband until they were certain they had lost him completely.

_(Even in his own bedroom.)_

Taking a glance around the bedroom now, CeCe is amazed at how far he's come in such a short time. The room is far from perfect- and won't be for a _very_ long time- but there is a clear change in the way things were a few months ago. Just the fact that CeCe could even get into the room in the first place speaks volumes. Eli doesn't sleep in the TV room on the pull-out anymore since he and Clare unearthed his bed, and he doesn't use the padlock on his door at night anymore, either.

_(It's still on during the day, but hey, Rome wasn't built in one, and her son won't be fixed in one, either.)_

Watching Eli sleep, sprawled out and open, brings it all back.

He sleeps hard, her son. Sleeps hard, runs hard, does everything hard and full-tilt. Loves hard, too. And it's caused him so much hurt.

For awhile, she thought she would lose him completely._ Fixed_, she thinks again, and the word brings the pain back to her. Not for the first time, she wonders what would have happened if she and Bullfrog had handled Julia's death better, had handled Eli better. Surely, kids don't just get lost like this.

Because kids don't just _get lost._

People _lose_ them.

She loves this boy so much. Her son, her Baby Boy, the only son she had was nearly swallowed up by his own darkness, and all she could do was watch as he became buried in his own bedroom. Maybe she could have done something, and maybe there was nothing that could have been done. But either way, she let Eli get so lost, and if not for Clare, she doesn't know where he would be now.

_Life is just so hard, Baby Boy_, she thinks sadly, bending down beside her son's sleeping body and watching him breathe.

Life isn't a movie. Life is terrible. Life is so insane and sad and just utterly fucking awful.

Maybe they are shitty parents to Eli. Maybe they didn't do him a service by breaking him into adulthood so soon, or letting Julia live with them, and maybe they did a really terrible job of being there for their boy when she died. But Bullfrog and CeCe wanted Eli to just experience life without letting anything to hold him back or encumbered by any inhibitions of society.

Maybe they'd done him a disservice. Who knows? She doesn't.

She did the best she could, mothering her little man, and she loves him.

What else can she do?

She knows that Eli blames her, in part, for what happened to him after Julia's death. That she failed him as a mother, for letting him stray so far away. But she hopes that he can forgive him. She hopes that he will realize that life is too damn short and filled with too much pain to go on hating those that will never stop loving you, no matter what. That for all of their faults, she and Bullfrog are loving if they are over-the-top; caring if they are inept; parents if they are free-spirited and outrageous. How useful would it be to be resentful of them for so long?

_(The dead aren't the only ones that need to be let go of. At what point do you need to just live and let things die and rest where they are?)_

Whatever her son thinks of them, she knows that she owes Clare her son's life. She wouldn't have what's left of him if it weren't for her.

So even though her son is facing this new heartbreak, another terrible blow, she hopes that with Clare by his side, he won't slip away from her again.

_And man is a giddy thing_

_Oh man is a giddy thing_

_Oh man is a giddy thing_

_Oh man is a giddy thing_

**Author's Note: This isn't the last chapter, but this story is going to come to a close soon. Thanks so much for everyone who stuck with it and took the time to read it. **

**THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.**


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Note: Last chapter! Sorry I took so long with updating, but I wanted to wait until I was absolutely certain that I could end it properly. It was as tough a story to end as it was to write. **

**Once again, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all my wonderful reviewers. You guys reassured me that this story was worth writing and kept this story going. I owe this to you guys. Thank you so much. **

**I don't own Degrassi or the lyrics to "Sigh No More".**

**REVIEW.**

**I.**

Sav stares at his bloodshot reflection in the rearview for a moment. He yawns, his jaw cracking in the process. His greasy, unwashed skin feels as stretchy as molding putty, and the same grayish color from staying up all night long.

He turns to Alli, zoning out in the passenger seat. "You alright?"

She shrugs, not looking at him. "Is that a question?"

He sighs, then puts a hand on her shoulder reassuringly.

Alli glances at him, her eyes black-bagged and rimmed with exhaustion, and tries to smile.

Both of their parents are already sitting at the kitchen table, fully dressed and sipping cups of coffee. Both kids tiptoe through the kitchen with their heads hung down, waiting to hear some sort of disciplinary action coming their way for staying out all night long on a school night, but instead their mother just tells them to wash up and she would prepare them some breakfast.

"It's alright, Mom," Sav tells her. "Not that hungry."

She nods, pursing her lips worriedly. "Is…everything alright, Savtaj?" she asks. "With your friend?"

Alli makes a small noise involuntarily, her eyes glued to the floor, refusing to meet her parents' looks. Tears pool in her eyes.

Their father clears his throat, making every head in the room turn to him.

"Savtaj," he begins.

His voice, Sav notices with surprise, is firm, but oddly compassionate, even with its clipped, professional tone.

"If you wish, you and your sister may stay home today. I will call the schools and explain. You have our permission."

For a moment, he's too surprised to respond.

"Thanks, Dad," he replies, when he gets his voice back. "But, uh, I kind of have to do this whole speech at school today."

"About…" his mother says, then stops, unable to finish the thought.

Sav just nods.

His mother places a hand over her mouth, turning her back to them and leaning against the sink.

**II.**

Declan wakes up to the sun peeking through the blinds in Fiona's bedroom. He blinks for a moment, the light nearly blinding him, before remembering where he is.

Just like that, the entire night comes rushing back to him, whacking him like a baseball bat in the gut. His head throbs, and not just from the sunlight and lack of sleep.

Rolling over to one side, he studies his sister, fast asleep on the same pillowcase. Her dark curls are splayed around her like veil, her eyes swollen and puffy, and her arms are pulled close to her chest, as if she's trying to hold herself in with them. The covers are kicked down to her waist, and Declan props himself up on one elbow, tugging the blanket back up to her shoulders.

His stomach rumbles. Funny. Last night, the last thing he ever wanted to do was eat, but the pang in his belly reminds him that as much as he feels like the world has just come to a glaring halt, the most mundane things still need to be done. He still needs to eat, drink, bathe. Sleep.

Wracking his brains, he tries to remember the last time Fiona ate something. Certainly before they got the phone call last night.

_(God, was that REALLY last night? It seems like it was an eternity ago)_

Should he make her eat something?

No, he decides. Right now, he thinks the best thing she needs is lots of sleep. She'll eat when she's hungry. And if she's not, well, then, Declan will just have to make sure that she eats something to keep her strength up.

He's the big brother, after all. It's his job to take care of her.

It always has been.

_(Will Drew ever be able to take care of his little brother again?)_

Creeping out of the bedroom as quietly as possible, Declan pads barefoot to the kitchen and opens the fridge, searching for something to cook for breakfast. There's a bag of baby carrots, a container of hummus, a tin of caviar, some leftover stir fry, and a jug of soy milk, but nothing else.

A cursory glance at the pantry yields nothing better- a box of crackers, some whole grain pasta, and a jar of organic peanut butter.

God, what does his sister eat when she's here for meals?

A knock on the door startles him, and before he can even make his tired brain respond, the key to the door opens and his mother steps him.

She blinks, surprised to see him. "I didn't know you were spending the night," she says.

Declan shrugs. "I didn't want to leave her alone."

His mother nods. "How is she?" she whispers.

Declan opens his mouth, then shuts it again. He just stands at the pantry, one hand gripping the door handle, and shakes his head.

Lara's gloved hand brushes her lips for a moment, then she crosses the kitchen and puts her arms around her son. She sniffs against his shoulder, trying to regain some composure.

When she pulls away, Lara runs a hand through his greasy, sleep-matted hair, and cups his cheek gently in her hand. She plants a kiss on his forehead, then heads to the bedroom to check on Fiona.

**III.**

Sometime after Bullfrog gets in from broadcasting the late night show (or early morning, depending on how one looks at it), Eli and Clare stumble blearily down to the kitchen for something to eat, Clare dressed in a pair of Eli's sweatpants and an Alexisonfire t-shirt that hangs to her kneecaps.

CeCe stands at the counter, brewing a pot of coffee for her husband, who sits at the kitchen table rubbing his eyes tiredly. When the kids enter, however, both adults stop what they're doing and look up.

Eli returns their glance with a firm one of his own, his jaw set firmly and his hair flying every whichaway. Clare, however, can't seem to look at them, but instead shifts her eyes from the family stare-off to her bare toes curling on the cold tile floor.

CeCe is the first to break the awkward silence.

"Clare," she says, clearing her throat. "Why don't you give me your clothes from last night. I can toss them in the wash for you."

Clare nods, infinitely grateful for the icebreaker. "Sure," she says. She gives Eli a small smile, grabbing his hand momentarily before she heads back up the stairs, leaving Eli alone with his parents.

CeCe smiles sadly at her son from the counter. "How about a cup of coffee," she suggests.

Eli nods, then takes a seat next to his father at the table. He and Bullfrog don't look at each other as CeCe puts two steaming mugs in front of her men, pausing to kiss the dark plain of Eli's head before turning back to the counter and buttering some toast for herself.

Clare comes back down the stairs, and CeCe leads her to the laundry room, wordlessly throwing a glance back in the kitchen, where her husband and son sit inches apart and a million miles away from one another.

For a tense moment, Eli just sips his coffee while his father thumbs through the paper without reading it. Then, after a beat, Bullfrog just reaches his hand out, and closes it over his son's.

He doesn't glance up from his paper right away, and Eli doesn't move right away. But he looks at his father's hand, closed over his

_(it surprises him, how much larger Bullfrog's hand is than his. He takes after his mother, with thin, long fingers, whereas Bull's are more blocky and thick, like slabs of meat)_

and even though it's a small thing, it's still enough for him to feel the uncomfortable, insecure tenderness.

It says, _I'm sorry._

It says, _I love you._

It says, _I'm here for ya, Eli. _

As much as Eli may begrudge his parents sometimes, he hears this message loud and clear.

**IV.**

By the time Zane pulls up in front of Riley's house, Anya is fast asleep in the backseat.

Riley glances at her, then back to his boyfriend. "I'll just be a sec," he says. "Gotta grab my polo and my backpack."

Zane nods, switching off the engine and waiting in the driveway. He looks back at Anya, then peels off his sweater and covers her with it.

He leans his forehead against the steering column, relishing the feeling of closing his eyes. He would give anything to just go home and sleep the day away. A few hours ago, he couldn't imagine being able to sleep, but now the adrenaline is wearing down, and all he's feeling is the hammer of fatigue hitting him right between the eyes; bone-deep exhaustion.

All of a sudden, a rat-a-tat-tat on the rolled-up windows startles him so badly that he leaps up in his seat, crashing his head against the wheel. His heart hammering, he looks around wildly, only to see that his would-be assailant is just Riley, standing outside the driver's window and waving Zane's car keys in his hand.

Riley is grinning at him, and motions for him to roll down the windows. "Get out," he tells Zane.

Zane just stares at him, too tired to comprehend.

"Come on," Riley tells him. "You can't be driving if you're falling asleep at the wheel. I'm gonna drop you off at home."

"You don't need to do that, Riley," he protests.

"Yes, I do," he insists. "You're no good to anyone walking like a zombie. Go home. Get some sleep. I'll drop the car off after school."

Zane wants to protest, but his brain is too fuzzy to articulate much. He looks into his boyfriend's kind face, just as tired as his own, and can only bring himself to nod.

Riley brushes his fingers against Zane's cheek for a moment, slightly awkward and clumsy. Then he motions for Zane to scoot over, and as he sidles over the gear shift, Riley climbs into the driver's side.

His eyes are already drifting shut by the time Riley backs out of his own driveway, and when they pull into Zane's about fifteen minutes later, his boyfriend has to actively shake him awake, as he's fallen into such a deep sleep that it takes a couple tries to wake him up again.

**V.**

Sav runs a comb through his hair and adjusts the collar on his polo, a last-ditch effort to make himself look a lot more tidy and composed than he feels. Even though he took a shower as soon as he got back and put on fresh clothes, he still has that gross feeling that accompanies staying up all night, and his eyes are watering from tiredness.

Still, he downed a cup of coffee as he got himself dressed and freshened up, because as hard as it's going to be, he needs to go to school today and get things done- even if he has absolutely no idea what he's going to say today at the assembly.

Giving himself one more once-over in the mirror, he rubs some gel into his hair and heads down the hallway.

As he walks towards the staircase, he pauses a moment at the door of Alli's room, left open the slightest crack. She's decided to stay home for the day, and as he brushes his knuckles against the doorway and pushes his head in, he sees that she's dressed in her pink flannel pajamas- something she would never dare to be seen with outside the house- and is curled up around a massive pile of stuffed animals underneath her fluffy comforter, fast asleep.

Maybe he's too tired, and maybe it's the overwhelming emotional tornado of the previous few hours, but he can't help it: the sight of her- so warm and calm, the surplus of fluff and flannel surrounding her like a buffer from the harshness of the outside world- momentarily melts him.

Sure, Alli is a total pain in the ass sometimes. Sure, she's really annoying and rude and downright bratty. But in the end, she's his little sister, and he loves her. He hopes that she knows that he only ever wants to take care of her, and that everything he does for her, no matter how annoying she may think it is, is _because_ she's his sister and he loves her.

He's her big brother.

It's his job to take care of her.

And he always will.

Tiptoeing so as not to wake her, he slips into her bedroom and removes some of the plush from around his sister's face, making sure she isn't going to choke on the Ty overload. Then he rests a hand on her head, brushing the dark hair away from her face, and tucks some stray hairs behind her ears without ever waking her.

**VI.**

After a few hours, his mother leaves, reassured by Declan that he can stay here and watch Fiona for the day. So while Fiona sleeps the sunlight away, he sits in her living room and stares at the TV without watching it, absentmindedly munching on a bag of barbeque potato chips that he found in a drawer in the kitchen.

Sometime later, Fiona emerges from her dark cave, her eyes still swollen and sunken into her skin, which is the grayish color of paper mache. Moving like a post-operative patient, slow and hesitant, she lumbers towards the couch and gently eases herself down next to Declan, her glassy eyes glued to the television.

"What time is it?" she says, after a long time of silence between them.

Declan glances at the clock on the wall. "Almost lunchtime. You hungry?"

She shakes her head, still not tearing her eyes from the screen. "I'm so tired," is all she says.

"Then go back to sleep," he tells her.

Fiona rubs the space between her eyes with her fingers."I slept all day," she replies.

Declan reaches out to her. "Come on, Fi," he says. "Go back to sleep."

Fiona nods, and Declan helps her up, the two of them shuffling back to her room. He peels back the bed covers for her and gently eases her back under the comforter, fashioning it around Fiona's body.

She watches him with the same glassy-eyed stare she fixed on the television as he sits on the bed next to her. "You must have somewhere to be," she says.

He brushes the fringe out of her eyes. "Not particularly."

"Stay with me?" she asks. Her voice is hardly more than a breath.

Declan nods, climbing into bed beside her and wrapping the covers around them, two hearts beating under the same warm skin. Just as they were in the beginning, when they grew side-by-side in the same soft protection of their mother, their barely-formed limbs touching and sightless eyes already sensing the presence of another, someone connected to them from the very instance their lives began.

**VIII.**

Holly J stands at behind the curtain in the school theatre. Behind the thick velvet barrier, she can hear the rustling of the student body on the other side, indistinguishable voices murmuring words she can't hear that sound more like the inside of a beehive than actual human voices.

Beside her, Sav clears his throat for the thousandth time. "You ready?" he asks.

She looks up at him. "As I'll ever be, I guess. You?"

He shrugs, a gesture of surrender.

Mr. Simpson strides over to them, adjusting the sleeves of his suit jacket. "One minute till go time," he says. "You guys all set to go?"

Holly J and Sav exchange a glance, then look back at Simpson. "All set," Holly J answers.

Simpson nods, then steps past them to the podium, and before they know it, the curtain raises, and the two of them back away to stay hidden in the wings.

"Welcome, students of Degrassi," Mr. Simpson begins. "As most of you already know, last night, one of our own students- a sophomore by the name of Adam Torres- was the victim of a violent crime that has left him in the intensive care unit, and his friends and family all asking the same question- _why?_ What could have been the reason behind such an atrocious act of violence committed against another human being?"

A pause. Simpson stares at his hands, then looks back at the crowd steadily.

"Unfortunately," he says, "I don't have the answer to that question." Another pause. "Nobody does. Because none of us can predict the actions of another human being, or even begin to understand why people do the things they do to one another. All we can do is try to educate people in the ways we here at Degrassi believe the world should be, and hope that in turn, those people- namely, you students- will go and live out those lessons and educate the rest of the world."

"We can't expect the world to change today, or tomorrow, or even next week," Simpson continues. "But I do want you to realize that at Degrassi, we believe that the world _can_ change."

"It won't be easy. It won't happen overnight. But I do believe," he emphasizes, "that there are good people out there. Good people at this school. Young people, capable of growing up and changing, and being able to reach out and touch the world with that goodness, and maybe- someday- they can change someone else's way of thinking."

He stares into the audience for a moment, letting the words sink in, and then gestures backstage towards Sav and Holly J.

"To begin our assembly, your student body president, Sav Bhandari, would like to say a few words. Then we will hear from your vice president, Holly J Sinclair, and then Larissa Moon and Ryan Quinn, your co-presidents of Degrassi's LGBT club. Please give them your undivided attention."

Sav gives one more look at Holly J, then heads out onstage and takes his space behind the podium as Simpson steps aside.

He stares out at the sea of faces, most of them blurry as melted wax under the bright stage lights, and takes a deep breath, willing his heart to stop fluttering in his throat.

"Thanks, Principle Simpson," he begins, grateful his voice doesn't crack. "Students of Degrassi, thank you for giving me your attention this morning. There are some important issues that need to be discussed today, and I hope that you won't just leave them here in this auditorium at the end of this assembly. The things that we discuss today are lessons that we should all hold close to us not just now, but for the rest of our lives. And each and every one of us can benefit from the things we learn today, if we only have the strength to listen."

_Love it will not betray you  
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free  
Be more like the man you were made to be  
There is a design, an alignment, a cry  
Of my heart to see,  
The beauty of love as it was made to be_

**THE END**

**Author's Note: Thank you again so much for all the reviews. If it wasn't for you guys, I would never have continued this story. I never expected it to go this far, and I wouldn't have if I didn't get such great support. So thanks again for everything **

**Again, the title of this fic comes from the song "Sigh No More" by the band Mumford & Sons. check this song out and the rest of their music. They are just phenomenal. **

**In other news, I have updated my fic "Adam Torres's Guide to Babysitting". It was originally supposed to be a oneshot, but I got so many great reviews that I decided to continue it, so I posted another chapter late last night. I don't know if I'll continue it after this, but who knows. Check it out and review!**

**I also posted a bunch of other stories this week, so please read and review those if you can, as well. **

**And thanks again for all the wonderful words. **


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